[jwplayer evABub5c]Super Smash Bros Melee god Juan ‘Hungrybox’ Debiedma has been grinding the latest game in the series, Ultimate, for some time and entering online tournaments. Now, a new event by the US Army caused the pro to flip on taking part in the competition.
On September 21, the Jigglypuff main posted a since-deleted tweet advertising how he had been formally invited to enter the US Army’s $5,000 Smash Ulimate Challenge.
“Always glad to see online events with huge prize pools,” the Team Liquid star said. The tweet also included information about the event such as the registration deadline, participant cap and more.
However, all that changed mere minutes later when Debiedma announced he would not be taking part and used some bombastic words to make his opinion known.
“Actually, f**k that,” he said and deleted the previous post about the event.
“I told them to rip up the contract,” Debiedma continued in the tweet’s thread. “I know it’s all ‘secure the bag’ and this but like I had a bad taste in my mouth about it the whole time.”
According to Hungrybox, the military and esports should “never be combined” and said he would be sticking to that ideology “forever.”
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“I gotta trust my gut more often,” he concluded in the since-deleted tweet.
It’s unclear why Hungrybox deleted the remarks about the army and the tournament, but he’s hardly the first to take issue with its presence within the gaming landscape.
The US Army has been quite a polarizing presence on Twitch and among gamers in recent months with some accusing it of using games as a way to recruit.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even took aim at the army using its funds to maintain a presence on Twitch, games, esports or other live-streaming platforms.
In any case, this is just another chapter in US Army’s esports drama, albeit with a Smash Bros twist.
