The comment I'm about to post may be taken as very offensive by some people. There is no harmful intent in this post, it's just my honest opinion.
Watching the tournament videos from this and the tournament in Lyons REALLY contradicts this. Europe is definitely very far behind the US in Brawl, no offense to Europe. The later release date for the PAL version of the game, sure, but that was only a four month difference. The metagame I'm seeing displayed is nearly a year behind us, I'd say. Flayl's Bowser won the tournament without dropping a game, and it really wasn't even that impressive.
All of these players look like they have no idea what they're doing, even the ones who took top placings. I'm sorry, but I'm very worried about the general skill level. The lack of good approaching, defense, punishing, edgeguarding, and reads really depressed me. In a Flayl vs. GSM match, Flayl is falling to the ground helplessly at 200% and GSM does a banana -> grab combo instead of getting the guaranteed smash for a kill. A LOT of instances like this happened throughout basically every match I watched.
Europe really needs to step it up as a region. Don't let Bowser win any more tournaments, guys!