Beating up on the newb...

So, I have had this friend for years.  When we both had our rigs up and running we would go rock crawling together.  He's the kind of friend who would do anything for you and more, without you even asking for the help.  He's a good guy to have as a friend.  But something happened yesterday that has me concerned.

First, a little background.  We have this mutual friend who has an older compact pickup he put a small block chevy engine in.  This mutual friend and I go to the local drag strip and run our cars.  His little truck and my 2004 Pontiac GTO.  The more my friend works on his pickup, the closer he gets to matching my times in the GTO.  I can beat him pretty consistently, if only by a half a second.

Well, one run down the track one night, I got caught sleeping and had a horrible reaction time.  Our mutual friend in the compact pickup beats me by half a car length or so.  My bad.  I messed up and Jay beat me.  It happens.  No big deal, right?

But my rock crawling buddy just won't let it go.  He's been needling me off and on ever since that one race happened.  "How much did you spend on that and how much did Jay spend on his and he beat you?"  "He has a lot less power in his but he still beat you."  Over and over it goes.  The thing is, it wasn't even my rock crawler buddy who beat me.  It was a mutual friend.

So fast forward to about 3-4 weeks ago.  This rock crawler friend of mine finally convinces me to get my Xbox 360.  I get Chromehounds since that's what the clan is really playing right now.  I get this system so I can hang out with my buddy, his wife and all the other cool people in the clan.  It's a lot of fun and I'm enjoying myself.  I'm a newbie but everyone is cool and helping me out, showing me the ropes.

A couple weeks into playing hounds, the clan sets up this free battle and for fun we decide to run scouts with machineguns in a free-for-all.  I get on the opposite side from my rock crawler friend but that's ok.  It's all for fun, right?

Well, we get into the battle.  We're exchanging fire and everyone is beating on everyone else.  I manage to be at the right place at the right time and I get the kill shot on my rock crawler friend.  Sure.  He was softened up from fighting everyone at once so I know I didn't kill him single handedly but I got the kill shot.

Remembering the grief he gave me about the one loss in my GTO, I start picking on him back.  I mean, it's all in fun right?  It's just smack talking right?  No one takes it too seriously, right?

WRONG!!!!

Fast forward to last night.  I crack off my smart mouth about my lucky kill again.  Nothing unusual for a guy like me.  Keep in mind, I've known my friend for going on 6 years now and he should know I'm full of it.  Well, I guess I didn't know him as well as I thought I did.  Apparently he's taking this WAY too seriously.  He waited until we got into a battle in hounds.  We're on the same side in this match but that didn't stop him.  He maneuvered behind me and SHOT ME IN THE BACK THREE TIMES WITH HIS DOUBLE/DOUBLES!  Not once.  Not twice.  THREE TIMES!   IN THE BACK!

Fortuntately for me, he's a lousy shot.  He hit a couple of my sniper rifles and got some splash damage on everything else but I'm mostly intact.  But he's not that bright either and he thought that he had killed me so he keeps walking by.  I had stopped because I was close to a cliff and I needed to get my bearings before I slid down a very tall hill.  I see him walking by so I decide to return the favor.

Now, I'm not one to talk ill of someone but you would think that an experienced hounds player would remember that double D's do a hell of a lot of area-effect damage.  And shooting them at point blank range is not very smart because you tend to do yourself in.  But he did it nonetheless.  So he was hurting a lot worse than I thought.  It only took one shot from one assault rifle to his cockpit (a direct hit mind you) and I blew him to smithereens.

The first time I killed him, it was just happenstance.

This second time, he dug his own grave and I just pushed him in.

Naturally, I'm going to talk major smack now.  He's not going to get away from that kind of stunt without me giving him a major wedgie.  I'd be breaking a man law if I didn't smack talk him.  So I do.  I lay it on thick.  It's who I am.

So I guess he was really feeling inadequate.  Here he is, having played hounds for quite some time. He's really a pretty good player with many accomplishments.  But here I am, a newb and I'm slapping him around and calling him Nancy in front of the other clan members.  He has to do something to recover his honor.  I know it's coming so I play along.

He challenges me to a one-on-one match.  I oblige.  Thing is, I have no idea what to bring to a match like that.  I've never really done anything like that.  So after some technical difficulties, I show up at the death match with my hound.  The deck is 100% stacked against me but I figure it'll be a good learning experience.

So he brings this fast little hound with some kind of missles and he pushes me around like a 5th grade bully pushing around the 2nd grader, acting all tough and "manly".  I take my beating so he can impress all his friends.  I manage to kill him once he runs out of ammo and I've died a few times but there's no doubt he's pushing me around at will in his hound that, in his own words, "requires no skill to use".

I'm sure he'll be strutting around, bragging about how he killed me.  Yeah, like that was really tough.  A clan leader in a refined hound against a newb with a clunky hound.  That victory ranks up there with a football team beating the Arizona Cardials.  It just doesn't really mean anything.  It's just a given.  But if it makes him feel better, I guess I'll give it to him.  After all, I don't want him to look bad in front of his e-friends.

The thing is though, next time we face off and I put him down, I'll just smack talk again and put myself right back in that situation.  But as I get better playing the game and I get better hounds, I know I'll be able to turn the tables on him.  My question is, should I just let him keep winning or should I smack him around every time I get the chance?