Okay, I see nothing wrong with that. Actually, now that I think about it, not throwing items off before things get going probably would unbalance things. I'm with HotGarbage:
1-Mr Escalator suicides 4 times, if a Smash Ball appears during these suicides he grabs it.
2-If an item appears, Mr Es ignores it, one of the opponents will grab it and return to their corner, throwing it off of the stage.
3-Once Mr Es has suicided completely, and the items have been cleared, I say we just start as soon as he's gone/the items are off of the field since our position won't really matter (since none of our characters are really camping types, I think this should be okay, since any projectiles used by HG and I would be for mindgames anyways).
Sound fair to everyone?