User blog comment:Staw-Hat Luffy/Too Many Participants/@comment-94.68.165.51-20130403191420

I think Oda would like to "give color" to this chapter by presenting some strong competitors. Would be really plain if he started the tournament straight without a prologue.

What surprises me is that he decided to make preliminaries so short in duration. What will we have? the 4 winners of the blocks and 5 from Doflamingo family? What about the blind man, what about some other special participants?

We know that we have atleast 9 contestants, but we need either 8 or 16 to make knock out machups. How will the rest of the spots fill?

Anyway, my guess is: Block B = Unknown, Block C = Luffy after defeating in a duel Cavendish, Block D = Rebecca or a surprise participants (something like Jesus Burgess)