Profile: Nicky Cuba

Some random dude rolls around the side of the dojo, and blasts Nicky in the face, blowing his Call of Duty character to pieces. On the replay we see the bob and weave, the face blasting.

“Goddamn it!” Nicky clenches his giant fist in the air, sitting on his bed,

Mike Paxton laughs and gives him shit, “Damn, you are just getting handled right now.

Nicky grimaces, fist stays up in the air, ready to smash it down on some imaginary enemy as he starts to walk out the room. “I was protecting that dumb ass who should have been running the flag in”, he turns around, reaches down for his headset, and yells into the mic, “Hey Alex whatever your name is, grab the flag dumbass and run it in next time.”

“God Nicky, what if he like twelve or something”, Nicky’s girl, Melissa, says half joking.

“Yeah, what if it was your kid?” I say, continuing to mess with him. We love seeing Nicky get riled up, it’s one of our favorite things about him.

“He needs to learn to play the game, I’d do the same thing if I was my kid. Even more so.” He says quite sincere.

Nicky is an intense person. Though he has become less emotional and more logically sharpened doing his turbulent career and life, he still wears his strong heart on his sleeve, especially during any sort of competition, whether it’s Call of Duty, paintball, or a casual game of beer pong.

“Alright let’s do this interview”, I say.

“Fine,” Nicky says now calm, but still fronting funny mock anger at his COD loss.  We sit on the dark couch in the living room as Nicky warns me of cat pee section.

“Whoa, whoa, don’t sit there, sit here”

This house is owned by Indian John Almera, a Dynasty coach, and former Ironman back in the late nineties. Located in Bay Park, just east of Sea World, with a clear view of Mission Bay from it’s roof top patio, it was actually built mostly by John and Yosh Rau, another tenant, a couple of years ago, and is one of the central crash pads/paintball houses in San Diego. Skinny Kevin, Dynasty’s coach, lives here. Angel Fergoza stayed here for a couple of months on an eventually aborted move to San Diego. Alex Fraige used to live here as well.

Matty: So, first practice of the year.

Nicky: Yeah first team practice of the year, knockin’ of the rust, seeing what we’re working with.

Matty: How many guys are showing up, what are you working with?

Nicky: We have eight, well actually seven cause Mikko doesn’t have a visa yet; he’s in Finland for the holidays. Xalo is in Brazil, and he has a visa, but we’re waiting to hear what happens with Mikko Hopefully both of them can return.

MM: So seven.

NC: And then anyone else coming out that guys have, but I’m not sure if anyone is coming. I was talking to a couple of people, but I’m not sure if it’s going to go through, people want a lot of money these days and there’s not a lot of money to give out.

MM: How is it out there right now, the climate, the attitude of the pro guys, in your opinion. Or just in general.

NC: We’ll I’ve only really talked to my guys, a few others, and yourself, mostly, but the feeling it that everyone is just weathering the storm, seeing what’s going to happen, seeing what they’re going to do outside in their regular life, seeing how they’re spending their money and see what we can expect this year, what they can make, what will make us professional. We’ll see if it’s going to be good or see how far into recession things are going to go.

MM: So the recession has hit pro paintball, but everyone knew that already.

NC: Yeah its time has come. With the new rules, with the eight man rosters, only having that number of players…

MM: How do you feel about that?

NC: I don’t like it all, I wish we could have deeper rosters. I understand, but at the same time there are a lot of injuries cause he go hard, and sometimes they come in waves, and then you have three guys down and what do you do? Call up those dudes you let go cause of the cap and you couldn’t have on your team, or have to cherry pick the guys that are left over, guys who are pretty much getting the shaft from pro tournament paintball because the NPPL closed down and the PSP has lowered the roster size. If that’s what they’re going to do, then it’s fine well make it work, but I just wish we could have more guys.

MM: Have you seen the other league, they have pretty long list of pro teams, some teams I’ve never heard of, at least playing at this level.

NC: At the pro level?

MM: Yeah.

NC: So that’s for sure going through?

MM: I guess, I saw the press release, they’re going to have the first event in Huntington beach and…

NC: That’s cool though, Huntington Beach is the shit. It’s just a badass event, it was going to be weird to think of a year without it. I’ll go there, I don’t know if I’m going to playing in it, but I’ll go, I just want to play in every tournament possible.

MM: And again I don’t know how the prizes work yet.

NC: I think it’s, at least on the pro side, the teams invest money but they don’t win money. Just trying to get the league started and see what they can do. Honestly right now I don’t know if it’s going to work. Cause we’ve been trying to get one league for so long, trying to get the companies together to make the sport better. I thought it was bad it closed down, but a good thing overall because it was a weight lifted off our shoulders as far as the internal battle between the sponsoring companies just going at each other through the two leagues.

MM: Another things that scaring me is we have a horrid situation with the economy, before some people we saying it wasn’t that bad, but now everyone understand it’s really really bad, though some people are feeling it more than others. But with all these leagues gearing up for grassroots support, it’s going to be hard for them all to survive cause they’re all going after the same dwindling player base. Like the PSP has been growing is grassroots support for the lower divisions, and doing well. There are a lot of seven man teams out there. But how many teams are going to stop playing this year, it’s going to be interesting to see, there a lot up in the air as far as the greater economy we don’t have control over.

NC: I like the idea of one scenario, one actually style of play, so it can be worldwide and everyone follows it. But I don’t know if I like the race to seven. If you look at last year games, there were a lot of comebacks that happened, like 7 -2, 7-3 games that came back and made it entertaining for the fans. Skunkings are bad for the show.

MM: There are two side of the coin though cause every time we make a change people hate on it.

NC: yeah, I knocked the other one too, I was like “race to nine…. that’s gay” but it was ended up cool.

MM: I felt they was some of the most dramatic paintball I had seen last year, but it doesn’t matter, everyone is always saying “what’s the ideal format, what’s the ideal format?” but these decision are being made in spirit of sustainability.
There are ton of ways to hit a ball with stick. How many different ways are there to throw or kick an inflated ball around a field, how many different variations? Paintball has that similar aspect; it’s so varied, so many different ways to play the game. But the question is where does the tip of the industry want to put it’s emphasis and what do the fans want to see?

NC: I want to see people get stomped out some kicks to the face (laughs)

MM: (laugh) Yeah, people are bitching about the drop in the speed of the guns, shit, let’s drop the rate to ten, lower the speed to 280, take off the facemasks, and give guys mouthpieces.

NC: Hell yeah, old school.

MM: Like back in the day.

NC: We didn’t even wear mouthpieces.

MM: Yeah we didn’t, and you can see your face. (Laughs) Who knows where it’s going to go, but as far as the Ironmen, there’s been big transitions every year, and that’s paintball, it’s not like you’re not used to things changing a lot.

NC: Yeah there have been big transitions on Ironmen, and I’ve seen major changes on XSV, but this year it is really drastic. Because of the rule changes, player changes and because we’re losing Shane, who has been the main contributor in analyzing games, practices, watching games at the events and he is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, controlling us animals on and off the field, keeping us in check.

MM: Which is quite a task.

NC: Yeah it is! Last year we lost a bunch of veterans, Mr. U (Pete Utchig), Ryan Williams, Josh Hill, and Todd Adamson, and Billy Ceranski the year before that, the first year I got on. Every year it’s been big name guys leaving, and now it’s our coach. It’s just obstacles put in front of us, reasons to make us play harder, that brings us closer together as a team to overcome this next obstacle. Yeah, we don’t have Shane, but we still have each other. We have to look to each other now, but that’s why I think this team is good. People are moving down to San Diego (Scott Kemp and Brandon Short have moved to Pacific Beach) so we are getting to see each other a lot more, train a lot more, and we are now a closer unit.

MM: You guys still look solid. First of all, you guys did great last year, except that last event. And second, you still have a lot of younger guys coming into their own, and a lot of older guys, and I can now say that about you….

NC: Hahaha, like a fine wine….

MM: Shittttttt, you heard Ving Rames/ Marcellus in Pulp Fiction: “If you think you age like a fine wine, you don’t. If you mean you turn to vinegar…you do.”

NC: (laughs)

MM: But yeah, you have a lot of older guys in now in their prime. You especially, now you are one the more responsible, clutch guys, which is the complete opposite of what you were at the start of your career, when you really couldn’t count on you to do shit off the field, or be there on time, when you were wild and crazy, run to the fifty,

NC: (laughs), catch balls in my face

MM: I mean I count on the fact you would shoot people….

NC: ….but not consistently

MM: yeah, but now it’s the opposite, how did you get here? Cause it’s the truth.

NC: It’s just tough love from you guys, and from all the teams I played on. I took it from the older guys on the teams I’ve been on. I would just try to be a sponge, take what I need to help my game out, and then I got rid of what wasn’t helping me. I think that’s what I got from west coast, from the east coast and the Midwest, from going everywhere are in our nation to grab a little bit from all the best players in each region. I think I owe a lot to that, traveling, being around everyone, around hardcore competition all the time.

MM: So you guys are going to play Xball, are you going to play the other league, and what are you plans internationally?

NC: Yes, for sure playing Xball, the other league still undecided, we went to the first meeting, checked that out and I’m waiting to hear back from what’s going on. Europe maybe, if someone’s wants to fly me out there and pay me, then I’d be down. Other than that I’m just doing stuff nationally, getting New Skool out there, more into effect, promoting it better, getting more of my line out there. Growing up a bit more, this is a side of my life that I’ve had on hold for a bit, designing the clothing line.

MM: When’s that coming out and where can people check that out?

NC: Should have some stuff out in the next couple of months. By June, around the time of Chicago, I’ll have a new run of t-shirts, hoodies, and the rest of the line by the end of the year. Go to nicky-cuba.com. Check out my Myspace, which is the same.

MM: Get your social networking on, get your Facebook on.

NC: Don’t have the Facebook yet; I’m not as cool as you guys, that’s next.

MM: Then how are you going to market to all the highbrow college students and hip professionals?

NC: It’s coming baby, it’s coming.