Smash Bros Legends: Behind the Scenes of Competitive Gaming and Esports - Hungrybox | DSH #1620

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Speaker 1 i used to be the world champion before the pandemic and now I'm back to top three, which I'm proud of. It's just like I got to push just a little bit further to get that world title back.

Speaker 1 It changed my life, and honestly, God, it changed my life overnight, like that. Basically,

Speaker 1 it really just changed a lot of things for me. I quit my engineering job soon after I went to Evo, I think less than a year after that.
That was it.

Speaker 1 From that point on, I was full-time gaming esports and built it into what it is now.

Speaker 1 So it's nice, of course, to be the best at something, but to fall off and then get back to it, I think it was twice as impressive.

Speaker 3 All right, guys, we got Hungry Box here out here for Evo, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, doing some content with Evo and Zenny and Team Liquid. Nice.

Speaker 3 How's the conference been this year?

Speaker 1 It's been good. I mean, the event's always packed full of people, and I can only go a few feet before I stop and see someone that I know after that.

Speaker 1 It's unfortunate not having Smash Bros at Trent anymore. It always breaks my heart.
But I'm bringing Smash this time. I'm doing a little exhibition this weekend, so I'm excited for that too.

Speaker 3 A little side event.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I gotta basically beat as many people as I can in a row. Each person pays $5, and whoever beats me gets the whole jackpot.
So when you're in Vegas, you got to gamble.

Speaker 1 So we're going to see how far I get it. If it gets to a thousand bucks, I take it home.

Speaker 3 Now, does fatigue play a role in that scenario? Like, how many hours are you playing for?

Speaker 1 I'm playing for, I mean, for 180 games, I did the math. It starts at 100, ends at 2,000.
So it would be, or I guess it would be 19. Yeah, 100 and I think it would be 180 games.

Speaker 1 Fatigue plays a role, but

Speaker 1 I think I got it. I think I'm good to go.
And because I'm just used to playing it.

Speaker 1 And, you know, when you go to as many tournaments as I do, like, I don't know, you kind of get used to it after a while. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'd imagine for you at this point, it's all muscle memory, right? Like, you're just so used to doing the same moves.

Speaker 1 It's muscle memory is a good part too, but also like the mentality plays into a factor. You got a lot of people who might be patient, try to bleed you out.

Speaker 1 A lot of matchups that require just, you know, you can't get tilted. You can't like rush yourself in.

Speaker 1 So my muscles and my fingers actually never get tired because I play Digglypuff, which is kind of like not as an intensely demanding character as the ones in the game.

Speaker 1 But to play here at our max level you need to have like your mind can't like falter for a second that's an interesting part of the game the mental side right because you all probably have similar skill levels at the top yeah it's pretty similar to the top level the max

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Speaker 1 wayfair every style every home matchups even you can argue there's a square of parody um you know like player a can beat b b can beat c c can beat d d can beat a and it goes like kind of like a crazy square at the top level melee does feel like that uh the rankings actually come out in like two weeks.

Speaker 1 I used to be the world champion before the pandemic, and now I'm back to top three, which I'm proud of.

Speaker 1 It's just like I got to push just a little bit further to get that world title back yeah so for the normies watching are there certain characters that are just unplayable like they're so bad and so i specialize in melee which is the one that came out 2001 for the gamecube a lot of the kids nowadays they play ultimate i play ultimate also but i'm like definitely not like a top protet by any means but in melee there's definitely top tiers high tiers middle tiers low tiers and bottom tiers got it and what separates those tiers it's just how viable your character is there's gonna be some characters that just do not have the tools at all able to contest with it with a top tier like fox marth falco chic even digglypuff my character is considered a top tier the worst characters in the game for melee are like bowser kirby you know those they're they're pretty bad i know uh ness is down there zelda is considered low this yeah it's just because melee was developed in i think less than two years yeah you know and it almost never got patched and got one patch when it was released in europe i think for the pal version like the fact that the game was as perfect as it is on like the first try is nothing short of a miracle.

Speaker 3 Some of my favorite childhood memories are playing that game on the GameCube.

Speaker 1 It's just awesome. Like, you're not going to get it right at the first try, but honestly, a decent like 13 to 14 of those characters in that game, I think, given enough time can just win a major.

Speaker 3 That's solid. So, are the newer games more balanced, I'd imagine?

Speaker 1 They are more balanced, but also because a game like Ultimate, you know, you get to iterate it, right? You get to launch out updates and you can download them.

Speaker 1 And games like Melee, they were on these little discs, so you couldn't update it once it was released. You just play test that as much as you could and hope for the best of your developer.

Speaker 1 I think back then, 2001, when it was released, metas, competitive things, they weren't seen as a serious thing.

Speaker 1 I think it took a bunch of people who are super hardcore enthusiasts about the game to create a competitive scene. And then you kind of roll with the punches, right?

Speaker 1 You took a game, you know, those characters that are bad. I mean, hell, we don't even use

Speaker 1 95 or 90% of the stages in the game. We play on six stages.
We use no items, but it creates kind of a really beautiful meta that is really fun to watch.

Speaker 1 And I mean, even viewership right now, a Smash Bros bros major for ultimate and a really good smash bros major for melee will probably get the same viewership now really oh yeah wow that's fascinating when brawl when melee when brawl i'm sorry when brawl came out melee didn't die because brawl and melee were so different games that the melee audience they tried brawl and they said we don't really like this we're gonna keep playing melee and then the new brawl kits came when brawl died smash 4 came out when smash when ultimate came out smash 4 died so the brawl audience went to smash 4 and they went to ultimate and when smash 6 comes out that entire ultimate audience, of course, is going to go to Smash 6 and Ultimate will die.

Speaker 1 But Melee, it never really had a true sequel.

Speaker 3 Is it because it's the first one? It's just nostalgic for people, you think?

Speaker 1 It's actually the second one. Oh, the second one.
The first one was Smash 64 for the N64, which I think we, you know, you probably played growing up to a little bit.

Speaker 3 I didn't play that one, actually. My first con, I'm 28.

Speaker 1 You're 28? Yeah. Oh, man.
I forgot how old I am. I'm an unknown.
I'm 32. Unk status.
Exactly. It's exactly what it feels like.

Speaker 1 But at the same time, you know, that game has a little hardcore audience too that still plays it.

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Speaker 1 They're participating in McDonald's. Through sequel, Melee, the reason people still play it is because it's the fastest, it's the most fluid, it's the most hardcore of the games.

Speaker 1 And I think people who are competing at the top level for anything, speedrunners, that sort of thing, they really want the hardest challenge. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And even 24 years later, people are still discovering new tactics, new metas, even using characters that are considered like bad. Like Donkey Kong was considered kind of a low-tier character.

Speaker 1 Like, it was kind of just slept on. And, like, I think in the past three years, four years, maybe, there was like this thing called the Donkey Kong Renaissance.

Speaker 1 And you had a guy recently named Junebug. He got third place at like the biggest melee term of the entire year.
Wow. I think last year with DK, solo DK.

Speaker 3 That's crazy.

Speaker 1 So who knows what we're going to see next in the game uh that's why you know with for a game that has no updates somehow the players keep figuring out how to update it that's interesting it's like those speedrun videos you see how someone always manages to beat the time of a game that's like 50 years old oh and i love speedruns right because it that is there's nothing short of perfection you have tas tool assisted speedruns those are going to show you how to be the game fast as possible and i think watching humans get as close and as close as possible to becoming or matching the TAS level, it's just a fat, it's just beautiful to watch.

Speaker 1 It's a journey. Shout out to Summoning Salt, by the way, one of the best YouTubers ever.
Oh, his videos are great.

Speaker 3 I'm incredible. Have you attempted any speedruns yourself on anything?

Speaker 1 I tried speedverting Mario 64, did not go well, but I got the appeal. I got the appeal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can see why it's addicting for sure.

Speaker 3 It's no joke, right?

Speaker 1 You got to know your stuff.

Speaker 1 And honestly, the cool part is once a new route is discovered, I think the newest trick, the newest major trick in Mario 64 is called carpetless, which is like saves you, I don't know, like almost a full minute or something or 30 seconds at least.

Speaker 1 But it happens at the end of the run, it's an extremely difficult, high-risk maneuver.

Speaker 1 But of course, as soon as one guy pulled it off, he got the world record immediately, and so every other speedrunner was forced to do that crazy maneuver at the end, and the record got passed around and stuff.

Speaker 1 And it's just cool. It's like seeing the race to perfection constantly change everything.

Speaker 3 Do you play any other fighting games or just melee?

Speaker 1 I just, I just play melee and I play Ultimate 2. I use Digglypuff in both.
And the only other game that really has taken over my life and my free time is Bellatro.

Speaker 1 Bellatro is a poker roguelike. It's not gambling at all.
It's a roguelike game. So you win a level, you go to the shop, you upgrade using Jokers.

Speaker 1 And you would think that sounds kind of weird for poker, but it was nominated for Game of the Year. And I think it should have won, in my opinion, over Astro Boy.
Wow. Quite literally.

Speaker 1 And it was made by one guy just named LocalThunk, who no one knows who he is. He's an anonymous person, but he just...

Speaker 1 He captured lightning in a bottle and made this perfectly addicting, beautiful, roguelike game that has so many ways you can play it. And it's a one-player game.
Um, and the

Speaker 1 community around it even made a mod to make it competitive, and I play that interesting on stream sometimes, too.

Speaker 3 I think I might have seen clips of that on social media, probably, yeah.

Speaker 1 But, um, honestly, this makes me respect indie game dev so much because when you get a game that good, uh, you're just you deserve all the millions of dollars that you get for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, do you feel like any recent games are like solid like on PC? I'm a PC gamer.

Speaker 1 I'm actually,

Speaker 1 what I tell people is I'm the least gamer gamer you'll meet. That's

Speaker 1 me even liking Bilacho that much is rare for me because I usually just stick to Smash.

Speaker 1 And I think the reason is I've tried variety of content and it's there too, but something about just me, how immersed I am in the meta in tournaments, I run tournaments also for Smash, the biggest online ones in the world, actually.

Speaker 1 I'm just so immersed in the storylines and, you know, perfecting my craft in it too, that that's where the majority of my audience is.

Speaker 1 And when it comes to other PC games, I think after like seven hours of streaming in a day, the last thing I want to do is play more video games.

Speaker 1 So maybe it's me getting old too, but every once in a while, a game will creep along like Balatro that I'm like, I'll play even outside of work on the plane, on the way here.

Speaker 3 Other than Smash, which fighting games would you say have the biggest communities, like biggest viewership numbers?

Speaker 1 I would say, I mean, we're at evil right now this weekend. I think the headlining is always going to be Street Fighter VI, but funnily enough.

Speaker 1 Street Fighter VI is the biggest, but if Smash was here, like ultimate, and they announced it to come back, I think it would quickly usurp that number one title. Wow.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe this week maybe this year i'm not sure who would be number one but smash actually has the most copies sold of any fighting games holy crap uh the ultimate individually so it has technically the biggest audience it's just unfortunately nintendo doesn't see eye to eye with i believe like the western ideals of what esports are i think they view it more as gambling i'm just hoping one day they change their mind on it and they really see how special it is and like with a formalized rule set with a formalized community and the meta that's been growing it really isn't gambling at all it's a true show of skill with almost with very little randomness, you know, maybe a slight speck of randomness given certain matchups, but it really does show you these incredible storylines and these brands, these platforms that players build.

Speaker 1 That could be a young teenager from Tijuana, Mexico, you know, just a young kid, and now he's, you know, king of North America and Smash.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about Spargo and MKLeo, great examples, Aquala, Japanese champion.

Speaker 1 These kids, they, their entire lives change just by being good at Smash. That's cool.

Speaker 1 And I just really wish Nintendo sometimes took the Capcom approach to these fighting games because capcom really embraces the competitive community they really allow like you know everyone runs their tournaments we have it here this is like the mecha fighting games like the super bowl fighting games it really does feel like smash should belong here so i was very fortunate and lucky that they allowed melee to be here the year that i won melee was here 2013 through 18 and i won in 2016 so and it changed my life honest an honest to guy that changed my life overnight like that basically wow it really just changed a lot of things for me I quit my engineering job soon after I won Evo, I think less than a year after that.

Speaker 1 And that was it. From that point on, I was full-time gaming esports and built it into what it is now.
Holy crap.

Speaker 1 And had Nintendo just said no to that, I don't even know if I'd be here today still playing Smash. That's nuts.
So I'm truly hoping, hey, I know you got a big audience in this podcast.

Speaker 1 I'm truly hoping at some point, you know, Nintendo, if they're watching, I say that every single time. If you embrace Smash as an esport, it'll be the biggest one in the world, I promise.

Speaker 3 So they removed it in 2018 from Evo.

Speaker 1 They removed it. But also,

Speaker 1 I believe Sony took over Evo, and that might have been the conflict there.

Speaker 1 I don't know the full details, but I know Sony does own Evo now. And maybe part of the reason Nintendo doesn't have Smash at Evo anymore, because I think Sony wants Smash there.

Speaker 1 They don't mind it at all. They would be happy to have it.
But I think it's Nintendo doesn't want their game to be at a competing platform.

Speaker 1 That's an interesting event. Again, I'm not the businessman, but that's my guess.
But I still think Nintendo could actually make a lot of money.

Speaker 1 I don't know, just a lot of success and sell a lot of games by having Smash here. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Esports, is it still growing? I haven't been paying much attention to the numbers and the analytics on it.

Speaker 1 I mean, esports is a broad term.

Speaker 1 It's a pretty broad brushstroke, but I mean, every single time that a new game comes out, every single time a streamer and with the growth of all the streaming platforms is going exponential and all these influence becoming bigger and bigger celebrities, like you could argue right now that one of the most famous people in the world is I show speed, right?

Speaker 1 There's always going to be famous actors, athletes, celebrities, but streaming is really becoming a new medium of entertainment and not just like one of the options, but like at the same level of television.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, and it's only going to get higher from there.

Speaker 1 So gaming and streaming have become so intertwined and entrenched with each other that anytime we do have an esport, as long as that keeps growing, I do believe esports will continue in that same path.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you're right, though. A lot of the top streamers do have some sort of gaming involved and content.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And we're in our massive, I'll call it a bubble, but it's a massive bubble here in North America of what we know about esports.

Speaker 1 If you watch like LCS or League of Legends or you watch the Dota Championships or whatever, but over in a place like China, like I think my buddy, my buddy Lewis, who's my coach, he actually went to China.

Speaker 1 He lived there for six months this year, and he told me he was watching, I believe, the League of Legends. It was either MSI or the Worlds or whatever.

Speaker 1 And if you look at the broadcast here in America, the Twitch broadcast for that had like, I think, 700,000 live viewers or even up to a million. Holy crap.

Speaker 1 And he told me like in China, if you added everything up, it had up to 30 million concurrent viewers. Why?

Speaker 1 And that's

Speaker 1 for a video game, right? So you have to imagine, like, remember, we are not alone in North America. The rest of the world, especially China, they take these games seriously.

Speaker 3 Those Asians can game, man.

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 3 League of Legends, especially, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, League is huge over there, but, you know, even over in China, I think you have games.

Speaker 1 I think it's called HP.

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Speaker 1 Trying to remember what it was, but it's a mobile game. And there's a website called esportsearnings.com where you can see kind of a general estimate.

Speaker 1 It's not always accurate but a general estimate of which pro athletes have made the most money not on their streams but their most money just off cash prizes in gaming and the highest one ever i believe is dota because dota had the international and what dota really did right was they used crowdfunding they had this big bundle you would buy as a viewer you'd buy the viewer get cool new items cool new skins i believe but a percentage of what you bought would go into that big prize pool right and you'd have prize pools it started out i think a million dollars and one time it was five million then one time it was ten million.

Speaker 1 So these guys, teams of five, they'd go, they'd win the international and walk home millionaires.

Speaker 3 That's nuts. Off of one of them.

Speaker 1 On a single tournament. Wow.
That's beautiful to me, man.

Speaker 3 That's the way it should be. That is nuts.
I watch some of these mobile games, believe it or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I watch Clash Royale if you know that one.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Yeah, that was for Dota I was talking about, but I was going to get to it.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 The mobile games now, that market, even in China or whatever it is, mobile games have huge payouts if you're good at it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Clash Royale, I think, pays out six or seven figs.

Speaker 1 That's insane. Clash Royale is crazy.

Speaker 1 We're We're lucky to see like four figures in Smash Bros for a tournament. And that's the thing.
Smash has such a big audience compared to the money you win in tournaments.

Speaker 1 Like, you really don't win a lot of money at all at tournaments. You make a living off of Smash Bros with content, with streams, Twitch and YouTube and sponsorships.

Speaker 3 So what's causing that discrepancy with the tournament payouts versus the viewership numbers?

Speaker 1 Well, I believe that the reason these big... The money has to come from somewhere, right? Yep.
And Capcom, for instance, for Street Fighter, they run the Capcom Cup.

Speaker 1 And who do you think provides the prize pool for that? Capcom. Because it's a great advertising thing.
One player goes home with a quarter million dollars, but

Speaker 1 they get to showcase their game. Even the inside game arenas when you're fighting the stages have Evo branding on them.
It's all integrated. It's really, really beautiful.

Speaker 1 Nintendo just, yeah, they just, I think because of their views on esports, they don't put money into prize pools for these sorts of things.

Speaker 1 And if they, I just really wish they realized what a spectacle.

Speaker 1 I mean, truly, what a worldwide phenomenon Smash smash bros would be across the world if they just took that risk smash six is going to come out and we're we're long we're actually we're actually overdue for new smash title as of

Speaker 1 last month it has now been the longest time between two smash titles so they're taking their time on this one yeah i believe it was because of covid too obviously it's basically a two-year buffer for everything but i think uh ultimate came out 2018 so it's been seven years wow that is at least seven years yeah I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 It could be 2017. But yeah, so with the Switch 2 now, everyone's kind of looking at them and Sakurai.
Only thing is Sakurai, who made Smash, she's making Kirby Air Riders now.

Speaker 1 We're just hoping whatever comes next is upgrade.

Speaker 3 I hope it's a good one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we all do, man.

Speaker 3 I haven't played in a while. I feel like Melee is hard to beat, personally.

Speaker 1 Well, who do you use in Smash?

Speaker 1 I'm a...

Speaker 1 So in Melee, or? I can guess your character.

Speaker 3 Guess, guess.

Speaker 1 Samus? Yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 Isn't that like everyone uses that one, though, right? No.

Speaker 1 Really? I just hard read you. You're Samus? Yeah, I thought that was a common one.

Speaker 1 I'm goaded. What gave that that away? Bro, I don't know.
Just like your demeanor. Interesting.
You seem like a studious kind of guy.

Speaker 1 I have to be. You do your research.

Speaker 1 You got a decent posture? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Something just said Samus to me.

Speaker 3 I guess Samus users are kind of nerdy, right?

Speaker 1 One of my favorite Samus players, a kid named Plub. He's actually here for Evo for Rivals of Aether.
Just a legend, legendary player. Damn, you guessed it.
Shit.

Speaker 8 Damn.

Speaker 3 That's wild. That is wild, dude.
Team Liquid, how's that going? I know you were sponsored in 2015, then you became a co-owner in 2021. How did that journey happen?

Speaker 1 Yeah, just they took a Steve Arnstein, the co-CEO.

Speaker 1 He was the CEO of Curse Esports, took a chance on me when I was in college. It was a very basic sponsorship, you know, like a few flights here and there.

Speaker 1 We had to stream on a platform called Azubu, which that didn't work out. But I was still happy to be, you know, to wear the jersey.

Speaker 1 When you're a kid in college, you know, just graduated out and you're just getting your feet wet in the even the engineering industry.

Speaker 1 Anytime someone's going to pay to play video games or even give you a flight flight somewhere, you don't take it for granted. I was very happy to do it.
The really lucky part was that

Speaker 1 Team Liquid and Curse Esports combined, or Liquid acquired Curse Esports, and then Steve Aronset and Victor Gusens became co-CEOs.

Speaker 1 I was a player on Curse when that merger happened, and I became like the world champion. in 2016 and ranked one in 2017.
So I think they found value in me keeping those titles going 2018, 19.

Speaker 1 And the more I won, people, I had fans, but also a lot of haters when i was winning a lot i think when they when the pandemic happened and tournaments didn't happen in person anymore i was at home and i realized the only thing you could really enter was online tournaments online tournaments for melee weren't really a thing then but there was tons of online tournaments for ultimate and in ultimate i was not a top player but i guess that made me more likable i was like i wasn't expected to win but jiggly puff and ultimate She's almost like a troll character because you have to land some crazy ass maneuver to win with her and it's super entertaining if you do.

Speaker 1 She's kind of like a hero character in that game where she's like a middle tier, like a low, she was like a low tier.

Speaker 1 So, I started playing, I think everyone was just going crazy, stuck at home, and all they could really do was watch Twitch streams.

Speaker 1 And my viewership like 10x in a single night, wow, just streaming these ultimate tournaments. And ever since then, I had a platform on Twitch.

Speaker 1 I had enough subscribers to live off of and enough support to just make it a full-time thing.

Speaker 3 That's awesome.

Speaker 1 So, even this week, even now, I'll still enter an ultimate tournament online.

Speaker 1 And that led to the creation of the box tournament series, which was called Juice Box Lunchbox for my followers, free-to-enter tournaments. One time I was like subscribed to Enter.

Speaker 1 And then for like two to three years, Team Liquid partnered with Coinbase.

Speaker 1 They're still partnering with them, but one of the coolest things about that partnership is that around the time I got offered to become co-owner, they said, well, if you're going to be coner, we really want you to spearhead this partnership.

Speaker 1 So we came with this amazing idea called Coinbox, where it was $2,000 weekly free-to-enter online ultimate tournaments. And they were a hit, man.

Speaker 1 People love them.

Speaker 1 I'm still, I'm very thankful i had that peer in my life to host that and i'm i'm working on a sequel to that series because um after a few years uh i think nintendo expressed to team liquid that uh they weren't very comfortable with that tournament of that size really being sponsored by crypto yeah oh wow but coinbase is like the most trusted exchange in the us

Speaker 1 i know that's nuts again it's just

Speaker 1 Sometimes I really, really wish I was like a fly on the wall at Nintendo, or I really, really wish like I had, we just had some kind of like

Speaker 1 an official esports liaison there, someone who's well-versed in Japanese culture, well-versed in like American culture that can truly bridge the gap there.

Speaker 1 Because sometimes, you know, it's like they don't want,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of like, we're sponsored by Monster Energy, but for instance, like they wouldn't necessarily want an energy drink sponsor for one of their tournaments.

Speaker 1 So like, it's like, not only do they not put in money to fund these events or prize pools, they also tell tournaments you can't have these sponsors.

Speaker 3 Wow. So you can't even wear your jersey, basically.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I can. I can, but like, if Nintendo is hosting an event, yeah, I can't wear it.
Holy crap. Yeah, they make everyone wear black shirts.

Speaker 3 That's crazy. I might have to moderate a debate or something, a conversation.

Speaker 1 I would. Nothing more.
But you know what?

Speaker 1 What I will say is that Nintendo, even though it's like Nintendo Japan leads everything, Nintendo of America, for a good time, I think they were really understanding how special esports was.

Speaker 1 And one of the guys who really, really understood it, and we're actually friends on Twitter. We chat every once in a while.
Reggie Fizeme. Reggie was the president of Nintendo.

Speaker 1 I got invited to do like a big exhibition with him.

Speaker 1 I think it was at the Nintendo World Championships, where him and I did a 1v1 in Smash Bros, the new one, and I was using Digglypuff, and he was using Ryu because Ryu had just come out from Smash.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we, we just did, you know, a silly game, obviously, with items on.

Speaker 1 And obviously, like, I beat him up pretty bad because you know, he's the CEO of a company, like I said, and I'm just a pro gamer. Um, but

Speaker 1 after the fact, like, he really, I remember I spoke to him, and he just really expressed to me that he really would have loved

Speaker 1 a more Nintendo in a more official capacity to embrace the esports sides of things. So I don't know, man.
When was that?

Speaker 1 Him and I did the exhibition, I think

Speaker 1 I think in 2017. Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 So maybe he just didn't have the poll.

Speaker 1 It was right before Ultimate, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's rough, man.

Speaker 1 Or I'm going to get the years wrong. Sorry, it's been so long.
But I've been playing, competing now and doing pro gaming officially. I started when I was 13, so it's been 19 years now.
Crazy.

Speaker 1 And in 19 years, there was that chance of Nintendo embracing it. There was also this other org that had a world championship brewing, but just I think a lot of bad decisions were made.
And

Speaker 1 when you're going to do something like on a Jupiter mountainous scale with Smash, an official scale, with that much money in it, you really have to have the blessing both of the people running it, which was, I guess, Nintendo and the org.

Speaker 1 They were known as Panda. but also the blessing of the community as well.

Speaker 3 And they didn't have either.

Speaker 1 There was, yeah, there was some, there was unfortunately like some, just some bad decisions, I guess.

Speaker 1 I mean, people can go to themselves and see what was happening, but basically, like, I think they, they wanted too much from the community, and it wasn't done, I think, in good faith.

Speaker 1 And I think people found out, and just the whole thing fell apart. And that was pretty much our last chance of getting Nintendo anywhere near us for on anything official.

Speaker 1 So I understand sometimes why they don't do it, but everything, every time a new Smash game comes out, there's always a chance to turn the page page on a blank slate and to do things properly.

Speaker 1 But for the most part, we're basically on our own. Wow.
We've been a grassroots.

Speaker 1 I think Smash Bros is safely,

Speaker 1 unless I'm forgetting, one, safely, the largest grassroots community of a video game competitively in the world.

Speaker 3 How many numbers is it? Do you know?

Speaker 1 I mean, on a good tournament, how many people play?

Speaker 3 I guess play and watch.

Speaker 1 It's got to be millions. Still millions.
I mean, it's Smash Bros, man.

Speaker 1 Because the game's 20 years old. Everyone knows Smash Pros.
The game's 20 years old. It's awesome new version.
People in frat rooms play it. Kids play it.
Adults play it.

Speaker 1 It's just like rappers mention it in their songs. Smash Bros is just a culturally good thing.

Speaker 1 But I don't know. All I can do is hope at this point.
But in the meanwhile, like I said, I've been running my own tournament series and we're trying to bring that back with Team Liquid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because someone's got to stop up and run the series.

Speaker 3 So you're mainly focused on the content side of things than professional at the moment.

Speaker 1 It's half content and half competing.

Speaker 1 I think because in Melee, because I compete in that, I'm so close to getting back rank one again that, you know, I got to see that through. There's also like the discussion, you know,

Speaker 1 it's nice, of course, to be the best at something, but to fall off and then get back to it, I think, is twice as impressive. So it's almost like a personal goal of mine that I want to do that for you.

Speaker 3 That would put you in the GOAT conversation if you're not already, I'd imagine.

Speaker 1 Goat conversation is definitely a very interesting one. Is that something you think about at all? They always, I'm always in the discussion for like the third most likely to get it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But now they're calling me second most likely to get it because the guy who usually gets it, Mango, he's not active right now.

Speaker 1 But like

Speaker 1 he has longevity. I also have longevity.
But Armada, the other guy in the conversation, he was kind of wiping the floor both of us when he was active. He was definitely the best when he was active.

Speaker 1 But then he retired in 2018. Kind of surprised everyone.

Speaker 3 Oh, at his peak, he retired?

Speaker 1 Yeah, at his peak, he's retired. Wow.
Yeah, we're after his peak. So it's been seven years with no Armada.
So, but he was that good where people are still talking about it.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like the Jordan LeBron debris. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Short and sweet.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, kind of like that, versus yeah, the guy who's been still winning stuff, longevity afterwards.

Speaker 3 Is there like a Hall of Fame or esports uh awards or anything?

Speaker 1 I well, there is esports awards, I actually won a couple of them. I was nominated, actually, oddly enough, I'm nominated for controller player of the decade.
Damn, so that's gonna be reveal in August.

Speaker 1 I'm definitely not winning that because I'm against some legends in the fight, the first-person shooter community, and those are

Speaker 1 uh formal shotsy, Imperial Hall. Yeah, there's really huge, and I think Imperial Hall is an Apex player.
And their game's Caught in Halo.

Speaker 1 Smash is big, but those are also massive communities. But I was really thankful because two years ago, they awarded me with Esports Creator of the Year, probably because of the Coinbox series.
Nice.

Speaker 1 So that was a really good honor. It was nice to have that accolade because I always thought, well, I can be really good at one thing, melee, but content, maybe I'm not cut out for it.

Speaker 1 So that just justified and really validated the fact that I can do it too. So that was a really special thing.

Speaker 3 No, that's an impressive transition to me because a lot of gamers are so locked in on the game, they give up their social skills and their social side.

Speaker 1 When fandoms are made, dude, like in any sport also, like if you have a guy who's really good at basketball, right? You watch him all the time, you start to idolize him.

Speaker 1 And let's say he goes on an interview, he cracks a funny ass joke and you start laughing. Suddenly, like, damn, I went from liking this guy to loving this guy.
I'm a huge fan now.

Speaker 1 This guy's awesome, right? So you become really a genuine bona fide fan. And I think in the Smash community, there's a lot of things too.

Speaker 1 You can have players that are amazing in the game, but maybe outside of the game, they're kind of shy. They're kind of quiet.
They're not certain things.

Speaker 1 Maybe you have someone who's a huge shit talker.

Speaker 1 Maybe you have a guy who's just a sweetheart. You never know.
And the cool thing is personalities, sometimes they really go hand in hand with play styles. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Like, I think, you know, me and Mango and Melee is a great example.
I play Puff. He plays the Space Animals, but he does a super aggressive, flashy style.
He's known for being a shit talker.

Speaker 1 He's known for getting under your skin, kind of poking at you a bit, see what happens. I'm the kind of guy who plays it safe.
I play Diggly Puff. I'll bleed you out for what it is.

Speaker 1 But then at the last second, I'll go for an all-nothing rest. And then, my, when I win, I pop off really loud and I jump up out of my chair.
I love that. And that's kind of like a rest in real life.

Speaker 1 So it's just

Speaker 1 art imitates life sometimes.

Speaker 3 I'm a fan of the shit talking. I think every sport should include it.

Speaker 1 Shit talk is actually very, very important.

Speaker 1 As long as it's like good kind of shit talking, respectful, yeah. Yeah.
Sometimes it goes.

Speaker 3 Has it ever gotten to that point for you?

Speaker 1 For me, yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 I've had some people who really did hate me.

Speaker 3 They crossed the line.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 What were they, like, what happened?

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm not going to go too much into it because

Speaker 1 I like staying unbothered now, like, peaceful and what it is.

Speaker 1 You know, I just had people make videos about me and just really say really just awful, unfair stuff about me. Oh, I meant in a match, but.

Speaker 1 Oh, in a match? No, the shit talk in a match. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 Right now, there's respect. Like, they see me, and I think because I've been in the scene so long, like, even if they, if I beat them, it's just, it's kind of corny.

Speaker 1 If you should talk to someone, immediately. It just is corny.
It's like, why are you doing that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, because you're going to play them again in like a week, probably.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but of course, back when I was rank one, the Twitter fingers, bro, went crazy. Oh, you popped off on Twitter? They popped off on me, bro.

Speaker 1 I was getting dogpiled. But like, nowadays,

Speaker 1 you know, I don't know,

Speaker 1 a lot of shit happened that changed. Like, some guy threw a crab at me.
A crab?

Speaker 3 Oh, was this the dead fish thing, or was this something else?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the dead crab, yeah. Dead crab.
Threw a dead crab at me in 2019 after I won a tournament.

Speaker 1 That caused a series of events that led one guy, YouTuber named Emp Lemon, to make a YouTube video on me about my story. I ended up getting 10 million views.
Holy crap.

Speaker 1 That completely changed my entire life, too. That's what made my channel blow up and do all that.

Speaker 1 But it also, like, it, it told my story in a really fair way that I had, he also went to my school UF, and I think he had a project, like a broken interview, could I do all this?

Speaker 1 And he's like, yeah, I'm sure. I wasn't sure how big it was going to be, but it ended up being this really, really big video.
And people still quote it to this day.

Speaker 1 And what's also cool about that video is that it's a time capsule for melee from the years like 2015 onwards. There's a Smash Bros documentary called the Smash Brothers, awesome one, made by Samox.

Speaker 1 That covers all of Smash history from like 2004 to like 2015. And the H Box documentary, I feel, is 2015 onwards.
Got it.

Speaker 1 And so, again, I was really thankful for him capturing that, capturing the stories. He gets most information right.

Speaker 1 Some of it hasn't aged great because in hindsight, It's just like it was made during certain sentiments right there.

Speaker 1 But for the most part, he really told my story well, which I was really thankful for.

Speaker 3 I got to check that out. I didn't realize how much hate you got back in the day.

Speaker 1 Geez. Yeah, yeah.
I was winning way too much. And also my personality was really not that good.
At least you could admit it now. No, and also I just wasn't all that great of a person in general.

Speaker 1 I had a lot of growing up to do as well. So looking back, I could totally get it.
But I don't regret it.

Speaker 1 I don't regret it because it put me here. Made you who you are.
And that's who I want to be. I love it.
That's who I am, yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, where can people support you? Find your uh future tournaments and everything, man?

Speaker 1 Twitch.tv/slash hungrybox. And then I have a YouTube, also Hungrybox.
And then my socials, Liquid H Box on Twitter, and Liquid H Box on Instagram.

Speaker 1 Just type in Hungrybox somewhere on Google and you will find something about me. Perfect.
And yeah, content hopefully every week from now until when I retire.

Speaker 3 Good luck tonight. Hopefully, you win 180 straight, man.

Speaker 1 Hopefully. Welcome, no one check.

Speaker 3 Check them out, guys. Peace.

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Speaker 1 Thank you.

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