Former Smash Bros pro Zero announced his intention to host his own tournament, years after they were banned from the vast majority of tournaments over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Explaining briefly in a four-minute video titled “Honestly, I Can’t Believe I’m Doing This…,” Zero said he would start holding his own tournaments “by popular demand.” This follows a joke tweet last year in which he pondered the idea of hosting a tournament called the Banned Series with other banned players. While this was meant as a joke, Zero admitted that certain banned players would be allowed to participate at their own discretion.
However, this event was far from a melee among all banned players. Zero made it clear that the attendance of certain players was largely dependent on whether he felt their bans were justified. “My goal is not necessarily to have a contest where you have a bunch of criminals and a bunch of banned people because the reality is some banned people do horrible things,” he said.
Zero elaborated: “But in some cases, certain players should be allowed to play, but it doesn’t make sense for them to be banned. On a base-by-base basis – not everyone will be allowed to play my game , but I will hand pick very specific people who I think should be allowed to play.”
Zero didn’t name any specific pros in the video, instead encouraging his viewers to suggest players they’d like to see featured in the tournament. In comments liked by content creators, users recommend figures such as the self-proclaimed “Smash’s own MLK Jr” Technicals, who himself has been banned from multiple events and credited with making multiple lengthy videos critical of the Smash community. famous. And Anti, another former Smash pro, was fired by esports organization T1 after sexual assault charges were levied against him.
In the video, Zero stated that they intend to start with an invitation-only format of eight people and eventually hope to live-stream the event and possibly open crowdfunding. “I thought it would be really cool if I opened crowdfunding at some point. Then you guys could donate and raise the stakes for the competition because me, I’m not a rich guy.”
Zero has been absent from the Smash community since 2020, when he was accused of sending sexual messages to minors. While he initially admitted to doing so, apologized for his actions and said he intended to seek medical treatment, he later retracted his statement acknowledging the actions in a Youtube video and went on to sue his former roommate and source of several 2020 allegations extremely fast. The lawsuit was due to be settled last September.
While the community seems to have made a concerted effort to remove Zero from the big tournaments, he continues to cultivate a sizable community on Youtube with approximately 869,000 subscribers and consistently receives more than 30,000 views per upload. Despite the allegations against him, his Smash Bros content remains popular.
Zero is of course free to host his own events regardless of the wishes of the wider community. The only hurdle that could prevent such events from being streamed is Nintendo itself, a company that has been heavy-handed in shutting down events in the past. It even tried to shut down Evo, the world’s largest fighting game tournament, in the past because it wanted to protect its intellectual property.
So what happens from here? Well, apparently a lot of eyes will be on the event. Whatever your opinion about individuals, bringing back those whose history is unknown for a game that is televised live is nothing if not a spectacle. The real question is whether these kinds of events will continue to grow in the long run beyond the initial shock factor of “OMG, Player X is back playing Smash Bros.”
This is life at the grassroots scene! The only real obstacle is Nintendo, and if the major company decides to ignore the work of Zero and the other banned players, the eventual fate of this event will depend on the players themselves. Those who are in the corner of zero regardless of the past, and those who want to keep their distance.
