Following allegations that he had molested a female player, a professional Super Smash Bros. player has been removed from his popular competitive team. The incident occurred on July 16, the same day as the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Smash 4) finals at this year’s Evo 2016 tournament.
Victoria Perez, another Super Smash Bros. competitor and streamer, alleged that Cristian "Hyuga" Medina molested her in a post she shared on Twitter yesterday. Medina is a highly regarded Smash 4 player from Mexico who recently signed with the pro team VGBootCamp.
"I really don't know how to write this because this has never happened to me before but last night I was molested by Hyuga," she wrote in her first post on the incident. "We let him into our room because we did not want him wandering around Las Vegas drunk and alone."
Perez said that Medina later got into bed with Perez and her boyfriend, himself a Smash 4 player, and proceeded to grope her. The incident, according to Perez, occurred over the course of 15 minutes until a friend was able to remove Medina from the room.
That friend, Nick Riddle, later tweeted what he said was Medina’s admission of involvement in the events Perez described.
— NickRiddle @ EVO (@VS_NickRiddle) July 17, 2016
Perez later wrote that she had filed reports with hotel security. She also mentioned contacting the Las Vegas police following the incident. We’ve reached out to Perez for comment as we work to verify these and other allegations.
Medina’s Twitter account has been deleted, however, as has his Facebook page. The allegations were enough to warrant his removal from VGBootCamp, who expressed faith in Perez and responded by booting Medina from the team today.
"This afternoon we heard accusations that our player, 'Hyuga,' groped a woman of the smash community sometime early this morning as she tried to sleep," VGBootCamp’s statement reads. "After talking to all parties and witnesses involved we believe that these accusations are true. Although he was heavily intoxicated during the incident there is absolutely no excuse for his actions. Starting immediately, Hyuga will no longer be a representative of the VGBC pro team."
The members of VGBootCamp said that they hoped this move would "set a precedent" for the fighting game community, which saw another incident of sexual harassment occur earlier this year during the Capcom Pro Tour.
"I do not want this to happen to ANYONE ELSE"
"We want to set a precedent for all teams and sponsored players in the [Smash] community to say that these actions will not be glossed over and ignored," the remaining players in VGBootCamp said in their statement.
We’ve contacted VGBootCamp regarding the state of Medina’s future following his removal from the team. Fans of the Super Smash Bros. fighting community have largely praised VGBootCamp’s response, with others calling for his professional ban from American competition.
Medina has already been banned from at least one upcoming major Smash Bros. tournaments: Shine 2016, to be held this August in Boston.
"In light of recent events and the evidence submitted, Hyuga will be banned from all future Big Blue eSports events, and also Shine 2016," the organizers wrote on Facebook. "We will re-evaluate his eligibility at our events in a future date no earlier than 2017."
Perez has since deleted her own Twitter account in the aftermath of the allegations making the rounds. In an earlier post, however, she said that talking about her situation would bring further awareness to these issues in the fighting game community.
"I made a tweet about the situation to spread AWARENESS. I do not want this to happen to ANYONE ELSE," Perez wrote. "The judgement of the community will take it's [sic] turn with this situation and hopefully bring more awareness to tournament safety."