MLG held its first fighting game only arena today in New York City, New York. The top 8 players from the Winter Championships were invited to partake in the arena. After 2 four player rounds robin's pools were completed, the top two players from each group moved on to the Championship bracket. Consisting of the Winter Championship winner Keev, runner up RTD ALT, female player Kayane and Hawkeye, it promised to be a nonstop action fulled final to an already great day of fights.

With semi-final 1 giving us a rematch of the Winter Championship finals. Coming out of Group 1 3-0, Keev was looking to keep his unbeaten streak on American soil and RTD coming out of Group 2 with a 2-1, looked to get his revenge over Keev. Keev would not have any of that though, as he dispatched of his foe with some great Nightmare work.

In semi-final 2, we were treated to yet another America vs France match, but without the major storyline of the first match, as Hawkeye took on Kayane. Kayane had just won a tournament coming in to this event. Hawkeye had yet to win a major event himself. Hawkeye looked great all day, and continued rolling as he took out the only female in the event.

This set up for one last show down between the power house SC5 nations as for a second time in the finals and 3rd time in the bracket portion of the tournament we had America vs France with Hawkeye vs Keev. Going in the match, MLG asked the viewers to vote on who they were cheering for and even with Keev being unbeaten the whole arena and winning the last tournament, it was Hawkeye with an overwhelming percentage of the vote of 91% to Keev's 9%.

The finals being a best of 7 series, saw some great action, and massive come back. Hawkeye's impressive Natsu play took the first 3 matches, finally finding an answer to Keev's Nightmare play that had taken him to the finals. Coming back from a 2-0 deficit in game one to win 3-2, he then went on to 3-1 game two and even got a 3-0 in game three. Keev then went to Viola in game four and scored a 3-0 himself. Not to have the win taken away from him, Hawkeye scored a 3-1 and took the title as the first MLG Fighting Arena Champion and $1,500.00 (USD). Keev got $900.00 and Kayane and RTD ALT got $500.00 each.

With this we are now awaiting the next MLG event, MLG Spring Championships in Anaheim, California, taking place June 8-10, 2012.