I got deep feelings after watching this video. Thanks alot

"I was trending above the super bowl for a little bit" Think about that sentence for a second

God really tried to save Chillin from getting 5-0'd

My favorite moment from this doc (and from Apex 2015) is the fact that Armada was drinking straight from a gallon carton of orange juice through top 8

I had one of the very first pools on the first day of Apex before the venue collapsed. I remember it like yesterday. Even before changing venues, the tournament was being run very poorly. I got barely any sleep because my round was scheduled so early, but then they didn't actually start for nearly an hour after the posted time because they waited for other people who didn't show up. Sure enough, I got cheesed by a few floaties and got eliminated way earlier than I was projected to. And that's why I pulled the fire alarm.

Thank you for having me! Great doc as always!

When Chillin said he was born and raised a rapper I lost it lol

i can’t believe this is free content. amazing

Something about hearing PPMD scream “I did it!” At the end made me damn near cry, such a great competitor and an icon to our community

Walt regrettably I only just got to watching this today. This was so fucking amazing man, thanks for sharing the story of this god forsaken tournament in all of its weirdness. Really happy with how you told every story.

damn the apex photographer captured some bangers

The most insane event I've ever been to. The worst part is the old hotel did almost everything in their power to screw people. In my example they originally refused our request to get our room refunded even when our event got totally cancelled. It was insane. I believe the hotel manager was arrested for fraud/negligence/something after all of this went down but don't quote me on that. I was one of the people that helped put CRTs onto trucks to get them out of there, it was a group effort but even helping in such a small way was a great boost to my connection with the scene and the people in it. It was a team effort to get this thing running, shout out to all the TOs, both originally on staff and not, who put incredible amount of preparation into working and saving this event. I strongly believe Melee wouldn't exist in the way it does today without Apex 2015. Much love

At 25:52 DK is Monke on the character selection screen.

Walt, you yourself are becoming a part of melee history

"I had no idea there was actually money on the line" Default fox is a pretty hefty gamble, tbf

Ok, haven’t watched it yet (obviously, since it just got uploaded lol) but that opening disclaimer is probably the best way to approach the events that have transpired in the community. We can’t pretend they didn’t happen, nor should we try to hide them. We have to accept that they happened, and move on from there. Anyway, just wanted to show some appreciation for that. Let’s get watching!

Jesus Christ, the chillin story never ceases to be funny. Toph's stream about it made me almost asphyxiate laughing

Apex 2015 was the first time I'd ever left my own region for a tournament, and while I didn't place as highly as I hoped (17th or 25th in Smash 4 iirc), it was an incredibly memorable experience. This video is a masterpiece, thanks for making this!

aMSa made history here. I'll never forget seeing aMSa's Apex 2015 and KoC4 clips in GRSmash videos that shook my view of Melee forever. Before that, it was just a party game that had some pretty cool 1P modes. Competitive Melee quickly became my favourite eSport to watch in late 2016. Long live this wonderful game.

Grateful to have been given the chance to help tell the story. Wonderful doc - thank you for making this and preserving Smash history!

Walt, I appreciate your work so much man. These documentaries top most of the big budget documentaries I've seen this year and here I am watching it on KZfaq for free! Your talent is unparalleled.

Whoever pulled that fire alarm had to be a time traveller

WALT MOVIES? APEX 2015?? ITS THE SMASH RENAISSANCE!!!

Apex 2015 was the first tournament I watched live after starting out in late 2014, and man was it an amazing spectator experience. Definitely one of the biggest factors that got me so invested in the Melee community. Can't wait to relive those highs watching an hour-long Walt documentary!

Would you consider making a video about fly amanita? I feel like he is kind of the forgotten ICs main compared to Chu and Wobbles. Esp in an age where wobbling is banned his story would be even more relevant

There are only three words that can describe PPMD’s win at APEX 2015. Stack It Up.

I can't watch right now, but algorithm, please pick this up in the mean time

An absolute masterpiece, you've done justice to one of the most goated events in Melee history that catalysed countless people's interest in melee, myself included. Bravo.

Kinda disappointed tbh. I was expecting at least 50% of this doc to be focused on the Bruce Lee book

walt, this is absurd. this is better prod value than the smash doc, and a quarter of the length. this content should not be free man, it's so good

Fucking masterpiece dude. The whole hour+ Give a year or so and this will have the recognition it deserves, thanks a lot for documenting it. Probably the first and only video I'll share with a friend from anyone ever!

Melee has as many stories of triumph, victory, failure, redemption, rivalry, and love as literal human history, and TurnDownForWalt is a canon historian on par with Herodotus lol

Never stop making documentaries please! The production value is just too good, and we need people to appreciate every single bit of the journey this game and its community went. Thanks walt!

I always felt so bad that mango lost 1000 dollars because he was uptilited

that crowd cheering aMSa is one of the most insane things I've ever seen, pro-wrestling would kill for melee crowds

Apex 2015 was the first smash tournament I ever watched, and it's what got me into the scene. Really excited to see this, and learn more of the context

legendary tournament

40:19 lmao i knew that clip looked familiar i'm in chat

Damn dude, it's content like this that makes me emotional. It's stories like these that show there is more to melee, smash, competitive games in general than you know and you executed it so perfectly.

This is my favourite tournament of all time. My friend couldn't watch because his dad dragged him to watch the SuperBowl so I live texted him the whole thing. Great vid walt

PPMD yelling "I did it!" will make me tear up. Man I wish I went to a tournament during that era but I'm glad the tournaments are here on KZfaq, along side great docs like this. When we're out of this pandemic, I'll be sure to see you all at a Smash Tournament!

came from lud's stream and enjoyed this a lot! i knew nothing about smash beforehand but still was super engaged :)

How did you possibly manage to find freshness in one of Melee's most told stories? I am so impressed, felt captivated the entire time.

I can never sing the praises of Walt enough. Absolutely next level content. I couldn’t look away, so so so well done. Fuck man I'd consider this the highest quality smash-doc I've seen in a looong time, and I've seen a lot of smash documentaries lol

Babe wake up! New turndownforwalt video!

*READ FOR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS!* I’m very excited to launch turndownforwalt.com/ -- a brand new merch store! Check it out and pick up some sweet LIMITED TIME threads from The APEX 2015 or My B Collections in celebration of this documentary. Speaking of merch, I’ve hidden 5 DISCOUNT CODES in this video, and they’re not easy to find! Comment if you find them (after you use them, of course). In addition, there are two hidden tdfw logos -- the first person to find both and comment will get a free item from the store! Lastly, I’d like to give a big thank you to Dr. Z, GimR, Juggleguy, MattDotZeb, Nintendude, and The Crimson Blur for interviewing. If you’re interested in seeing the full interviews with any of these folks, they’re all available on www.patreon.com/turndownforwalt This documentary was a long time in the works, so I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did making it!

This was a fantastic watch. I didn't attend Apex 2015 but I knew several people who did. I recall a lot of people being very miffed that Nintendo did nothing while Twitch (and I thought Redbull also helped by paying for a few trucks?) saved the day. Nintendo just sorta showed up with their Splatoon demos and that was it. Then they eventually moved venues with the rest of the tournament. So many people flew in and taxied/ubered to the first venue so they didn't have *cars*. The number of times people with vehicles willing to lend a hand drove back and forth to move all the equipment, luggage, and people was truly insane. Thank you so much for this top tier quality content!

I will never get sick of the apex 2015 salty suite

Yo I listened through an hour of this so far and it’s such a goddamn good overview of the event, you’re a treasure to this community.

Dude, this made me cry. I was around for Melee following one of my friend’s stories of his admittedly underwhelming run at Apex 2015. I never truly got to experience this beautiful part of Melee’s history, but this video made it seem like I was there the whole time.

Its a good day when theres a Walt or Asumsaus upload :)

I love how you used the april fools parody interview with Chillin like it's real lmao

55:08 is Armada drinking Orange Juice out of the bottle?

I remember watching this all live way back when. The Salty Suite was nutty, but I was up until like 3AM watching PP take grand finals then getting up for uni classes at 6AM again.

APEX2015 was the first time I found out about competitive fighting games as a whole. The highlight being my two friends at the time knowing everything and seething at the leffen match against chillin while I had no clue what they were talking about.

Your production execution just keeps improving; I love watching each of your documentaries and seeing the little changes that make each one better and more engaging. Keep it up!!

This was the first tournament I ever watched. Super nostalgic to see stuff about it and man this tourney means something to me. Amazing video, as always

OH SHOT ITS ABOUT APEX2015 IM SO READY

Great video! Looking foward to your next upload

This deserves way more views than it has, excellent work on this absolute amazing video. I remember watching Apex 2015 on Twitch an going on twitter seeing all the drama and seeing just how everything turned around.

THIS IS THE REASON IM GETTING INTO MELEE THANK YOU FOR THIS!

This was my favorite tourney of all time. It had everything. Great storylines, legendary salty suite, PPMD victory, the list goes on. Awesome vid Walt!

These videos are a fantastic labor of love. Thank you for what you do.

Great video Walt. Such an amazing story. Truly a diamond that was pulled from the fire. You made a great doc about it, more people need to hear about Apex 2015 fr.

PPMD is such a good human.

Walt, I gotta say, the structure of this video is actually superb. I don't know how to describe it in a concise manner, but good lord what a fantastic documentary!

The event that introduced me to competetive Melee. And competetive Ganondorf and it's pro players Bizzarro Flame and Eikelman. My favorite event.

god, this was the first major i was able to watch with my friends, all of our jumping off points for melee. truly one of the epitomes of the game. great work as always

Toph recounting Leffen vs Chillin gave me the biggest belly laugh of the day

Well. You certainly delivered on “long”

This video brought me straight back to when I first got into melee. Apex 2015 was my second melee tournament I ever watched live on Twitch, the first being Fight Pitt V. This video greatly captures the storylines of the tournament as well as the high placing players in it, as well as capturing the general mood of the community, at least as I understood it as a newcomer at the time. This was a great trip down memory lane and while this is the first video I've seen from this channel, I'm excited to see what else you have to offer!

Honestly this is incredible. This was the first major even that I ever viewed live and is part of the reason that I even got into the game. The friends I met, the experiences I've had wouldn't have happened if not for this event being as incredible as it was. Seeing it summed up in this many and the sheer unlikeliness of it even happening puts a lot of things into perspective. Thank you for this it means a lot

Watched on Ludwig's channel, this was great! Apex 2015 was the first tournament I watched live and what an incredible experience as a new player. I think this video will do a lot to get new players interested in the game! Thank you so much for contributing your time, money and effort into growing the scene for my favorite game! Absolutely amazing!

The plan wasn't so simple.

This made me realize that after watching this super sick game for 6 years (pretty much right after apex actually), I still didn't know nothing about anything that went down at this tournament (aside from the one thing *everyone* knows) until I watched this. I am now sad realizing what I missed out on but that's only because this documentary was entertaining and Apex 2015 is one of melee's legendary tales.

I have now watched this twice start to finish. The video came on again randomly after something else. Before I knew it I was watching the end of the video for the second time. Great content my dude you did a great job!

Damn walt. This was fucking incredible, I'm impressed this on another level

I can confidently say this was worth staying up until 3:20 am and sleeping four hours for school the next day. What an amazing video man. This event was legendary.

Another amazing job, dude. Apex 2015, in many ways, was the turning point for smash from underground fun to true mainstream. Thank you for your care and devotion to the community.

You have just as much love for the history of this game as the comunity has for the game as a whole and the fact that you can comunicate that to people like me, who wasn't there and who even lives in the other side of the world it's just amazing

I feel like Apex 2015 is the exact moment that Melee realized it was too great to still be grassroots.

1:04:10 Anyone else notice PP speaking with a lot more swagger than usual? Winning will do that to you.

I enjoyed every second of it! Glad we have you in our community man

The production quality is amazing, the way you interweave storylines and segue onto the next player is phenomenal. just wow

ludbuds poggers

This event has always been one of the most memorable for me. I only watched it live from my college apartment at the time but I just remember this was when I first got into melee and I just learned how to L cancel etc lmao. So hyped watching PPMD come back and win, the chillen vs leffen set, bizzaro vs eikleman....just so many iconic moments and pics that came from this event...and it was all at the time when melee was most hype for me. Didn’t realize how much of a disaster this tournament was logistically lol

Damn - these documentary type videos are always amazing from turndownforwalt but this one set a new ceiling! I'm really fortunate to be able to see stuff like this for free online. Thanks for making it!!!

Came from the stream - super informative and interesting!

41:28 Qing Empire OST from Kaiserreich, ah I see you're a man of culture as well This video is a full package of human emotion and chillin' story from every perspective, keep up the good work !

Every video is so impossibly polished

Great video. Apex 2015 will always be special for me because it was one of the first tournaments I watched. You did a great job of capturing the storylines, but also the crazy adversity at the beginning of the tournament. It's really amazing the TOs made the tournament happen, because in terms of how many different exciting storylines there were this event has few equals.

this vid brings back so many great memories from attending that tournament, thank you man. really well made

This is so unbelievably hype to watch even though I knew the outcome

Put my mans on Netflix

Absolutely incredible documentary as always. These masterpieces are criminally underrated. I hope you keep doing this kind of stuff!

This is incredible, thank you so much for making this

Coming from the Ludwig stream, this documentary was hype!

This documentary is sick

I like this, this is like experiencing an event from within, getting the context, the personalities, the stories... better than a traditional doc for this experience. Thanks.

Truly one of your best videos. Thank you so much for this.