nahh man... solomon back then was a monster. the most prepared freestyler(kind of an oxymoron). his lines were impressive at the time and he really figured out the science to be a successful "freestyle" battler. at the time, he was a monster.

Solomon was a beast back then but not vs. The Saurus

..."I'll be on your porch at nine to tell you, bitch, this porch is mine!.. Now you're too poor to rhyme and can't afford a spine... Too poor to shine and you're borderline blind!"

I got into battling a year after this battle, and even in context, this is awful, awful writing.. Solomon lost that battle

most freestyle battles have bad lyrics in retrospect

the biggest thing is your delivery, flow and sneaking in punchlines with a dominating performance. solomon was ALWAYS prepared.

I knew you would say that

"..."I'll be on your porch at nine to tell you, bitch, this porch is mine!.. Now you're too poor to rhyme and can't afford a spine... Too poor to shine and you're borderline blind!"

^^ that is bad writing by any standard, bad delivery, awful flow, doesn't even make sense... Can't afford a spine? Since when can you buy spines? Why would you want to? Are spinal transplants a thing?

You say "it was freestyle flow and delivery matter more"

Solomon had awful flow and delivery in his battle vs The Saurus

Solomon had some really good performances and that battle vs The Saurus was not one of them

Honestly, I'm rewatching it now and damn Saurus' first round has aged amazingly. Bars like:

porcupine/written or not... borderline
wooden cabin

Absolutely fire.

Solomon clearly got rounds 2 and 3 simply because Saurus ran out of material, but Saurus' third had that 'mine was debatable' moment which was all kinds of fire.

I'm so happy to hear you say that, cuz I've always appreciated The Saurus' performance in this battle. He did well, considering the circumstances and this is one of those videos that reminds you how much of a beast The Saurus is

The Saurus had the best punchlines, the best flow, styled on Solomon even though he ran out of gas a bit in 2 and 3 -- These are 1 minute rounds that he is freestyling... Compare that to a scribble battle with 2 30 second rounds

I personally judge this battle a bit differently since one person was freestyling and one person was writing

I take that into consideration, especially since The Saurus had to freestyle for a full 3 minutes total

Ultimately, I judge battles based on who looks better as a result of the battle, based on CASA

C - charisma

The Saurus - The Saurus comes off as a total bad ass who can give anyone a run for their money anywhere any time, no prep needed... Freestyling a NY guy in NY who is using writtens against you, and doing it well, like a total savage, heroic even

Solomon by comparison looks like a try-hard who tried to (unsuccessfully) ambush The Saurus, Solomon also looks like a coward who is afraid to participate in spin the mic, why? Because he sucks at freestyling, as we learned in Scribble Jam

A - Aesthetic and highly listenable

The Saurus wins - solid to good freestyling will always be more listenable than bad writing

The Saurus sounds good, even when he was running out of punches near the end he still flowed well and kept it as clean as he could (impressive, 3 minutes of freestyling is hard)

The Saurus' delivery is always good and Solomon's was not, Solomon barked out his lines, combined with having bad flow, Solomon sounds like a conspitated drill sargeant commanding his turds to jump into the pool

S - Supremely stylistic in some way

Freestyling against someone who is using writtens will always win you style points in my books.. The fact that The Saurus freestyled and still had the best lines of the battle means that he styled on Iron Solomon

A - Accessible writing that catches people's attention ( and doesn't sound like a speech)

The Saurus wins

Solomon playing the forced multi-game, to the point where a lot of lines don't make sense or just don't land, means that he comes off as very unlistenable, rambling, the lack of flow / bad delivery / forced multis really hurts Solomon more than the content of his writing helps him

The Saurus' angles about how pre-rehearsed everything really hit hard since it did sound overly rehearsed (in a bad way) - Hearing the Saurus talk about Solomon's writing was more engaging than what Solomon actually wrote


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People defend Solomon's bad writing by saying "It was 2007 standards were lower" but they also forget that in 2007 freestyling well gave you a lot of prestige and style points, depending on who you ask in 2007, writing / excessive preparation is whack...

Now just imagine if this battle had gone down on scribble with a beat... The Saurus would have ripped Solomon's head off with one upper cut, caught it with his other hand and slam dunked it in one fell swoop

In 2007 I would have told you excessive writing was wack.. didn't change my mind until around 2013

Since this a battle vs one person who is freestyling, Solomon's written lines can't be judged in a vacuum... Whether showing up to a freestyle battle with a ton of writtens is wack is debatable but regardless, if you're going to do it, your material better be significant better than what can be freestyled, specifically, it must be significantly better than what your opponent freestyled

And The Saurus had the best lines of the battle... His best punches may have been premeds but the advantage of a premed is that it's impossible to know if it's freestyled or not, so you're tempted to believe it was all freestyle, so the 'delivery" of the line sounds better...

all i know is that...

All I know is that "can't afford a spine" is wack

All I know is that The Saurus has the best lines of the battle

All I know is that Solomon had the worst lines of the battle

All I know is that freestyling well > wack writing