There’s always that one jerk in the crowd that has to ruin it for everyone else. Case in point, the “Smash regional Collision 2019” in New Jersey last weekend, where not only did a game come to a sudden halt, but an entire event nearly saw some major trouble.
During the Super Smash Bros Ultimate event, Tyler “Marss” Martins and Justin “Wishes” Magnetti were embroiled in a match with the top 32 players in the tourney. Towards the end of their bout, Marss grew very irritated with a person in the crowd. A few moments later, and still competing in the match, Marrs got up and stormed off the stage, leaving his opponent and the commentators very confused.
Check out video footage of the incident below:
Wishes wisely continued the match since no formal announcement was made, and proceeded to finish Marss off. Meanwhile, Marss was trying to speak with officials about the person in the crowd, who he felt was coaching his opponent – something that was not allowed in this particular event.
After 90 minutes, the pair resumed their fight and agreed upon a situation that was okay for both parties. Marss won the match, and later the entire tournament, while Wishes placed ninth.
Event organizer Riddge “RJ” Mussington posted a statement on Twitter discussing the incident:
As I’m sure you are aware, there was a situation that occurred with Wishes vs Marss at Collision. I wanted to state what happened and what was done.
First off, to avoid any confusion, I was in the venue room when it was happening. I was running losers top 32 when it happened and I didn’t hear him call me over due to this, nor was I watching or listening to the crowd while it was happening because I was focused on making sure matches were being reported and called to stay on time.
Wishes and Marss were playing their set and during the set there were multiple instances where a specific player from the crowd would yell out what could have been interpreted as Marss’ potential habits for the game and when he would be doing it. The call outs were happening throughout the match to the point where Marss felt that it was necessary to call a TO (specifically me) over to correct the issue.
Because I had a floor cam active from the production team, I reviewed the recorded footage that we had and determined that it wasn’t a single instance that happened, but rather, a recurring theme that happened in that last match. Because of this, I called in the rest of staff to deliberate and vote on what to do with the issue at hand. Once this was done, I talked to both players individually, then had BOTH players come together to talk to each other about it as well and it was agreed that both Wishes and Marss would replay the match with Marss at 1 stock, 0% and Wishes at 2 stocks, 130% (The estimated percentage that Wishes was at prior to when Marss got up).
I’m extremely upset that this situation occurred, but I’m also extremely happy I was able to work with both Marss and Wishes to come to a reasonable solution that both parties felt okay with. The player from the crowd that did this was also removed from the event to avoid any further issues.
The person who was shouting during the match at Marss, HGJ Panda, also posted a statement, and wrote that he was simply cheering for his friend:
After I made the cheer twice, Marss jumped out of his chair (lol), turned to me, and screamed “That’s coaching bitch!” From there, I ENTIRELY stopped cheering out of respect. However, after a few seconds he lost his stock to getting upthrown – NOT because he jumped – and ONLY ONCE HE LOST THE STOCK raged, screamed and stormed off like a lunatic, making everyone in the venue uncomfortable (which is plenty enough to get a non-top player kicked out of a venue).
So, no, it was not coaching. Saying that’s coaching is like telling someone on a math test that the answer to 2+2 is cum. Completely unrelated, was not used.
Regardless of what really happened, it was a big mess and a mar on something that should have been a fun day for both the gamers and the people watching.
