I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, don't mean to burst your bubble.
First off, this forum is for remix requests, not project recruitment. o_o
Rival battle themes being originals would not pass. This isn't a community of making originals. It's not OC OriGinal.
It's not a matter of getting 'permission' to start the project at OCR anymore. You start your project without OCR's support, and then if it's good in the end, they might release it. Things have changed around here. People can't just start a project for a game, whether it is obscure or not, and have discussion about it. A lot of projects are taking their recruitment and discussion to other communities. I never liked most of the decisions they made concerning projects, especially since it practically kicks all of them out of this community. What's to stop them from recruiting and releasing at a completely different site? But that didn't seem to be a concern when they made the new rules.
Plus, they would more-than-likely approve projects that existed earlier first. This one just started, but there are projects starting as early as January -- like Final Fantasy 1 -- that don't have official approval. They said that approval is based on which projects are released. No projects have come out since DKC2. The new rules came out shortly before this I think, and the DKC3 project was approved almost instantly for obvious reasons. So prepare for the long-long haul.
tl;dr recruit for your project now if you're serious about doing it, post a thread in the recruitment forum, and prepare an off-site thread somewhere for project discussion.