With all of the hype behind the Cassidy vs. Dizaster battle, it's safe to say that FilmOn TV's "Ether" event couldn't have been any more of a letdown. This is Battle Rap Journalist Michael Hughes, reporting on the conclusion of Ether. 

To begin, the livestream was a major letdown, as it was nearly impossible to get the connection to work at the scheduled 6pm EST start time for the event.  The link to watch the stream would not connect for me, and loads of fans that I was speaking to online who were trying to tune in.  After a long while, a notification popped up stating that it had reached its maximum of 25,000 viewers and couldn't support anymore.  While this may have been great for FilmOn's sales numbers, it blocked loads of fans from being able to join the "Ether" experience for a long itme.

It wasn't until Cali Smoov vs. Caustic had concluded that the video for the stream actually started working, but for me in particular, the audio wouldn't come on at all.  I wasn't able to hear a single bar from Heartless, and only got to watch Danny Myer's third with audio.  Prior to watching this battle I was informed that the microphones were faulty and the rappers were using handheld mics which was true.  The handheld mics weren't the worst thing that plagued this event by far, but they did take away the energy from the battles.  

Following Danny Myers vs. Heatless was a rather stale battle between Real Deal vs. Illmaculate.  It was filled with dull moments and never really managed to elevate the energy in the venue, nor on camera.  Oddly enough, there was an intermission right after this battle that should never have taken place at all.  While most viewers were expecting to see performances from big name industry artists, two aspiring rappers, a man and a woman named V Rich, took the stage.  Without going too hard, the intermission was not good, and featured a song with "yaki, yaki, yaki" on the hook.

After this was a very one-sided battle between Rum Nitty vs. Billy Boondocks.  Nitty easily smoked Boondocks who did not have more than one or two good moments in the battle.  The performance of the night came in the next battle, when Big T put in work against Daylyt's boy, Aktive. For a while now fans have been questioning whether or not T could make a strong comeback after suffering through numerous shaky battles, but he surprised everyone as the old Big T resurfaced. T's performance and bars were so strong that he became one of the Top 10 trending topics in the world on Twitter.

Following Big T vs. Aktive was a fair battle between Arsonal vs. Thesaurus that fans will most likely judge in favor of Ars.  The punchline battle of the night came next between Bigg K vs. Conceited.  While Con landed another dope "Slow It Down," he struggled to hit with his punches and had to endure loads of crowd "boos" in his third.  He responded similarly to the booing the same way that he did during his battle vs. Hitman Holla. Like Big T, Bigg K's performance stood out and made him one of the Top 10 trending topics in the United States.

Prior to Cassidy vs. Dizaster was the co-main battle between Daylyt vs. Serius Jones.  To the surprise of everyone in the building, Daylyt came with serious bars (no pun intended) and rapped for real throughout the three rounds.  He tried to give his boys the opportunity to spit bars at the end of this third, possibly setting up an antic, but the crowd wasn't feeling it and boo'd them heavily.  Serius Jones impressed lots of people and came with good material throughout the battle, and seemed to win over the crowd in the venue, however, the battle has been debated online thus far.

Finally, Dizaster and Cassidy came, and before the battle even began, you could tell that bad things were about to take place on that stage.  Like it is with most battles, associates of the battlers are way too thirsty for 15 minutes of fame, and always refuse to leave the stage when asked to by those running the events.  The fire marshall was in the building and threatening to shut down the venue numerous times due to the amount of people on stage, and they went extra hard for the main event.

The stage was loaded with people from both Dizaster and Cassidy's entourage's, but Cassidy had the bulk of supporters with him.  The building management ordered everyone to clear the stage, and when nearly everyone refused, they threatened to shut down the entire event. Eventually, a short man came on stage with a stopwatch and informed everyone that they had 3 minutes to leave the stage before the entire venue shut down. Dizaster's people got off, but Cassidy's were more troublesome and nearly let the full 3 minutes run down before finally clearing the stage.

Cassidy spit his first round, which was filled with very basic bars that the fans grew tired of and started booing after a while which he wasn't too thrilled about.  He seemed to choke at one point, but then covered it with a Conceited "Sike, I lied" line, so it's unclear if he really did choke.  There were arguements between Dizaster, Lush One, Cassidy, and others on stage about Cassidy's time limit, because he rapped for a very long time. Eventually he stopped and it was Dizaster's turn to rap, however, his round was full of disruption from Cassidy and his team.

Dizaster had trouble getting anymore than one or two bars off at a time because Cassidy kept talking during his rounds, and his entourage kept screaming or booing during Diz's first round.  Granted, Dizaster was talking frequently throughout Cassidy's round as well, which was a showing of unsportsmanlike conduct from both. There were numerous times when the crowd too boo'd for unnecessary reasons, and after a while Dizaster just stopped rapping entirely. It was after he concluded his round that Diz could clearly be heard stating into his microphone "This is the wackest battle ever."

Shortly after this, the lights in the venue cut off abruptly, and the audio on the livestream shut off completely.  Many viewers watching online were baffled by what happened, but then came to realize that the venue shut down after the livestream ended and wound up restarting the entire broadcast from the beginning of the event.  Fans on Twitter expressed a mixture of anger and relief that the event was finally over.

After speaking directly to Daylyt's gorgeous girl, who was working interviews for VladTV at the event, she explained the reason that the event shut down.  Apparently "Ether" ran out of time and the club had to shut it down because they had another event taking place right after it that they had to prepare for.  She also informed me that she spoke with various LAPD personnel, who claim that the event wasn't even supposed to go down in the first place because filming permits weren't obtained in the first place.

Aside from the fact that Cassidy got paid $250,000 to rap for only 1-round filled with mediocre bars at best, the entire event was infected with loads of absolutely horrible moments.  Technical issues were present from start to finish which included loads of audio problems where the sound would cut off at random moments during the battles.  The DJ was very suspect, and often missed his cue to play music, and they even played the wrong intro video for Big T vs. Aktive's battle, by showing footage for Bonnie Godiva vs. O'fficial, which was cancelled.

FilmOn TV had Bizarre from D-12, and Battle Rap personality Laura Tarsi working the commentary for each of the battles, which was a complete disaster.  They had microphone issues occurring everytime they tried to give recaps of the battles, and their chemistry on camera was awful.  There were numerous moments when they would be looking at the camera with awkward silence and blank stares, and the actual commentary they provided was...disappointing to say the least.

Fans have already been trolling online about how leagues with significant financial support "Can't Copy Respect," which is the Smack/URL slogan. Others have stated that the major leauges like Smack/URL, KOTD, Don't Flop, and QOTR should stick to hosting these big battles because they're the ones who do it best.  We'll have to see what happens if anymore celebrity rappers decide to step into the ring on leagues outside of the Battle Rap OG's.  On that note, fans can look forward to seeing Mistah Fab battle Arsonal on KOTD's Battle of the Bay 7 in January.

All-in-all, this event was a complete disaster from start-to-finish. Cassidy acted extremely unprofessional throughtout the event, audio problems and livestream technical issues seemed to run the entire show, and the commentary between battles was painful to watch. While it's certainly not easy to run a successful battle event, this was surprisingly terrible, and honestly will be viewed by many fans as the "Sharknado" aka Worst Battle Rap Event of All Time.

Dizaster went on to inform fans on Twitter that the battle will continue on Sunday, December 7th, at a private location.  Cassidy also addressed the cancellation on Instagram and called out Dizaster to battle in the street following the venue shutting down the battle.  Lush One also confirmed that the battle will be held at a private location.  See what they had to say above.