Most breaking battles are usually head-to-head competitions which see judges deciding the winners by way of a vote after each breaker or crew has thrown down a certain number of rounds, or done a battle within a certain time limit. But some competitions and promoters like to mix things up with popular or original concept battles to keep things fresh, original and exciting.
Here are seven breaking battles with a theme or a concept.
1. Bonnie and Clyde
A Bonnie and Clyde battle is a two-on-two competition where the pairs entering must be made up of one B-Girl and one B-Boy. Many times in these battles, the B-Girls will go out against each other and the B-Boys will go out against each other, but this isn't an actual rule in the battle. The B-Boy can also go against the B-Girl from the other pair and vice versa. The concept here is simply that the pairs must be a Bonnie (one female breaker) and a Clyde (one male breaker).
2. Seven to Smoke
This concept was created at a practice session by 010 B-Boys and Got Skills crew in Rotterdam. Tyrone, who's the Dutch promoter of the Notorious IBE event in The Netherlands, then adapted the rules and put on the first official 7tosmoke battle at IBE in 2002.
Eight breakers are invited or chosen from a qualifier to be in the Seven to Smoke. They line up in order and the first two breakers in the line battle for one round each. The judges then pick a winner, who gets one point and stays to battle the next person from the line, again in one round battle. The loser has to go to the back of the line and wait their turn to battle again.
There are three ways to win the battle:
- There's a 25-minute time limit for the battle. At the end of the 25 minutes, whoever has the most points is declared the winner. If two breakers have the same score they'll battle for the winning point. If more than two breakers have the same score, which rarely happens, usually they'll either add a few extra minutes onto the clock or have these breakers do a traditional one-on-one knock-out battle against each other.
- The ultimate way to win a Seven to Smoke is to beat all the other competitors all in one go, gaining seven points without losing a battle. If someone does this the battle is over and that person is the winner.
- Some competitions simply say that if someone gains seven points at any time during the battle, regardless of if they've lost a round in between, they win.
3. Top Rock only
A Top Rock battle is a battle where competitors are judged solely on their top rock (the stand up part of breaking). Doing anything other than top rock like footwork, power moves or tricks is forbidden, and will cause the judges to vote against you.
Go Downs to the floor are allowed, as long as you use them within your top rock to go down and come back up.
4. The footwork battle
A Footwork battle is a battle where competitors are judged solely on their footwork skills.
Again, anything other than footwork isn't counted, and if you start doing things like freezes or power moves, judges will vote against you.
5. The tricks battle
A trick battle is an all-out war to see who can pull off the most dynamic and unbelievable breaking tricks or trick combos.
Sometimes this battle has judges and sometimes it'll be judged by the audience, with the winner being the breaker who gets the crowd to go crazier.
Also, this battle is sometimes a one-on-one or is done by all the breakers in the battle throwing their best trick, one after another, and then being eliminated by the judges or crowd until a winner is chosen.
6. The power move battle
A power moves battle is all about who can pull off the most high-level power moves and power move combinations.
7. The Checkmate battle
The Checkmate battle is probably the most strategic concept battle on the breaking scene. Created by the promoters of the Circle Industry competition in Austria, it's a five-on-five knock-out crew battle.
For each battle, a crew must pick one of their members to be the King and one of their members to be the Queen. The remaining three members are Pawns.
Every time one breaker has thrown down from each side, the judges vote on who won that particular round between those two breakers. The loser of the round is knocked out of the battle, meaning their crew is now down one member. The battle then starts again with the judges voting after every round and the loser being knocked out. This continues until one crew has knocked out all of the members of the other crew.
This is what it looks like in action:
The other twist on this battle is with the King and Queen, who have certain powers in the battle.
The King has the power to call out anyone from the opposing crew, who must then answer the call out and battle them for that round. This means the King can try and eliminate a particular breaker from the other crew.
The Queen has the power to bring back an eliminated member of their crew, if the Queen wins their round. But the Queen can't eliminate anyone they battle against, a win from the Queen only brings a member back.
An added rule dictates that routines and commandos are allowed but must end with a solo breaker, who will be eliminated if that round is lost. The only time routines and commandos are not allowed is if the King calls someone out.
There's a 15-minute time limit on this battle. At the end of the 15 minutes, if no crew has won then the crew with the most members left is declared the winner.