“The community – they can’t control what I do” Excommunicated Smash Pro announces tournament

Former professional Smash Bros player Zero has announced his intentions to host his own tournament, years after they were banned from the vast majority of tournaments due to allegations of sexual misconduct.

Briefly explained in a four-minute video titled “I honestly can’t believe I’m doing this…”, Zero states that he will start hosting his own tournament “based on popular request.” This comes after a joke tweet last year in which he pondered the idea of ​​hosting a tournament with other banned players called the Banned Series. While this was a joke, Zero would acknowledge that certain banned players could participate based on his own judgment.

However, this event would be far from being a free-for-all among the entire cast of banned players. Zero explicitly states that certain players’ attendance would largely depend on whether he believes his bans are justified. He states: “My goal is not necessarily to host a tournament just to invite a bunch of criminals and a bunch of banned people, because the reality is that there are banned people who did terrible things.”

Zero elaborates: “But there are certain scenarios where there are certain players who should be allowed to play, that it doesn’t make sense for them to be banned. In a case-by-base scenario, not everyone will be able to get in.” my tournaments, but I’m going to personally pick very specific people who I think should be able to play.”

Zero did not mention any specific pros by name in the video, instead encouraging his audience to suggest players they would like to see appear in this tournament. In comments the content creator likes, users suggest figures like Technicals, self-titled “Smash’s own MLK Jr,” who has been banned from various events and is best known for creating several long-form videos criticizing the Smash community. . There’s also Anti, another former Smash pro who was dropped by esports organization T1 after sexual assault allegations were leveled against him.

In the video, Zero states that they intend to start small with an eight-person invite format, hoping to stream the event live and potentially open up crowdfunding. “I think it would be great, for example, if at some point I open crowdfunding. Then you guys can donate and raise the stakes for the competitors, because me, I’m not a rich person.”

Zero has been absent from the Smash community since 2020, when he was accused of sending sexual messages to minors. Although he initially admitted to doing so, he apologized for his actions and stated his intention to go to therapy. then he would retract his statement admitting those alleged actions in a YouTube video, and later sued his former roommate and source of various 2020 accusations, Jisu. This lawsuit would conclude in an agreement last September.

While the community had apparently banded together to remove Zero from the larger tournaments, he continued to foster a sizable community on YouTube with approximately 869,000 subscribers and a video count exceeding 30,000 per upload. His content from Smash Bros. remains somewhat popular despite the accusations against him.

Regardless of what the wider community wants, Zero is of course free to host his own event. The only barrier that could prevent such an event from airing is Nintendo itself, a company that has been tough on shutting down events in the past. It has even tried to shut down Evo, the world’s largest fighting game tournament, in the past out of a desire to protect its intellectual property rights.

So what happens from here? Well, obviously a lot of eyes will be on the event. Regardless of how you feel about the individual, bringing back those with a murky history for a live streamed tournament is nothing more than show business. The real question is whether or not these types of events can grow in the long run, beyond the initial wow factor of ‘OMG, Player X is playing Smash again’.

Such is life in a grassroots scene! The only real obstacle is Nintendo, and if the giant corporation decides to ignore the work of Zero and other banned players, the ultimate fate of this event will be in the hands of the players themselves. Those who are in Zero’s corner despite past events and those who wish to remain distant.