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Ironmen: There have been
many versions of the Ironmen.
The SC Ironmen, LA Ironmen,
Bob Long’s Ironmen and the one
we’ve placed as the third best paintball
team of all time--the original Ironmen.
So there’s no confusion, this is the team
that featured Bob Long, Dave Youngblood, Shane Pestana, Daryl Trent, Dirk
Gadburry, Marty Bush, Clayton Kyle,
Jamie Cannivaro, etc. So what have the
Ironmen done to be given such a high
placement here? Let’s start with this:
They made the tournament paintball
world forget about Navarone (Guns of
Navarone), a team that until that point
in history was considered the best ever
by everyone. From 1991 and until their
eventual split in 1997 the Ironmen
were dominant, even with the likes of
the All Americans, Aftershock and the
UK Predators all on the circuit. From
their first major event in 1991 and until
the formation and eventual start of the
NPPL in early 1993, the Ironmen won
nine major events (Lively, World Cup,
ASO Series). Once the NPPL began the
Ironmen put up three straight years of
dominance, winning the league’s se-
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ries title three straight years. If it was
not for a 10th place finish in the World
Cup in 1996 they would have won the
title four straight. Add to all of this the
Ironmen were the first American team
to win a major event on foreign soil,
taking first place in the 1995 Mayhem
Masters. Because the Ironmen were
almost unbeatable for the first three
years of the NPPL we almost placed
them second on this list. In the end the
all Americans’ longevity and sheer number of wins jumped them ahead of the
Ironmen in our opinion.
Other Ironmen notes of interest:
When the Ironmen split in 1997 (actually they fired Bob Long, their captain)
they reformed under the name SC Ironmen minus Bob Long. The immediate
result was the SC Ironmen lost their
first game ever--to an amateur team
(pros played amateurs back then) and
for two years couldn’t get back into the
top five in the NPPL. Bob Long on the
other hand, started a new team, Bob
Long’s Ironmen, and made the finals in
all five events their first season (1997)
and won the NPPL series title in 1998.
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