In a sudden turn of events, the EVO Twitter account has recently announced that EVO Online would be completely canceled this year. This announcement comes after the sexual misconduct accusations against Joey "Mr.Wiz" Cuellar, the now-former president of EVO. These accusations came to light after a number of prominent Super Smash Bros. professionals were exposed for pedophilia and sexual assault, among other things.
Evolution Championship Series, otherwise known as "EVO," is easily the largest and longest-running fighting game tournament that attracts players from all over the globe. EVO was started by Tom Cannon in 1996 and originally hosted Street Fighter tournaments but has expanded to other fighting games over the course of its history. Eventually, EVO began to host tournaments for games like Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Bros, drawing in thousands of participants and viewers. Many players have made a name for themselves by either outright winning EVO or making outstanding plays in bracket.
The catalyst that led up to these current events could be traced back to the Super Smash Bros subreddit. Multiple people within the community were accusing well-known players such as JTails, D1, and Cinnpie for sexual assault, "grooming," pedophilia, and unwanted sexual messages. The biggest revelation occurred when Zack "CaptainZack" Lauth revealed on Twitter that he had a sexual encounter with Nairoby Quezada (NairoMK) at the age of 15. Immediately after posting, NairoMK deleted his Twitter account and later issued an apology, confirming the allegations held against him.
After Zack Lauth came forward, many other victims stepped forward with their stories. Twitter user Mikey~ CrackPr0n presented his story about how Joey Cuellar solicited young boys to jump into pools in their underwear for arcade tokens. Additionally, Cuellar bet Mikey $20 to prove to him that his penis was above average size. Mikey~ states he did not suffer any serious mental trauma from the event, but his story serves to highlights a previously hidden and unacceptable part of the fighting game community.
Following these allegations and Joey Cullar's apology on Twitter, game companies such as NetherRealm and Capcom announced that they would be pulling their games out of EVO, removing marquee titles like Mortal Kombat 11 and Street Fighter V from the line-up. Later, Mane6 and Bandai Namco also announced that they would be pulling their games, including Them's Fightin' Herds and Tekken 7, out of the online tournament. With so many major titles pulled from the event, the EVO organizers were left with little choice. They released a statement, effectively firing Joey Cuellar and replacing him with Tony Cannon as CEO. The statement also informed the community that they would be committed to making changes to EVO in order to create a better and safer culture for all. As a result of this decision, EVO Online is being canceled and refunds will be distributed to anyone who originally purchased a badge. Additionally, the organizers would continue to donate to Project Hope, as originally intended.
Victims are continuing to come forward with horrifying stories of sexual assault within the fighting game community. While the shockwave of these events continues to ripple throughout the community, we can only hope that once the dust settles, the new community will be better equipped to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.