The punches should have been drawn in secret, waiting to be revealed in some dramatic manner. That way you would have had less pressure on your work *and* you would have spared all this useless chit-chat from the readers, both of which would then give a very positive effect.

But then again it looks like instead of collaborating, you preferred to treat this as a real battle just so that a "winner" would be set. If that's the case then something is wrong with you.