NRG will have to go into their semifinal match at the North American RLCS X Championship without coach Emiliano “Sizz” Benny after he violated the competition’s code of conduct by calling Psyonix staff “brainless monkeys” on Twitch.
Rocket League Esports released news of the ban on June 7, but it all stems from a Twitch stream featuring Sizz that happened a few days earlier on June 1.
The General NRG coach was playing in the Intel Open World Qualifiers with Version1 coach Jayson ‘Fireburner’ Nunez and now-retired G2 pro Dillion ‘Rizzo’ Rizzo, but would be knocked out after an intense best of 3 final map where they were unable to send it to overtime.
After the close loss, Sizz lashed out at Psyonix devs for constant network issues and lag, a completely understandable complaint if you’ve ever played online games before — but it was probably the profanity-filled tirade calling staff “brainless monkeys” that the company didn’t take kindly.
“This is f***ing garbage dude, I just want one f***ing useless f***ing member of Psyonix — one of those useless f***ing employees — to sit and watch my stream, and be like ‘yeah, this looks normal to me,'” Sizz raved. “You stupid f***ing garbage company. F***ing disgrace, what a f***ing disgrace.”
He continued on with plenty more colorful language just what he thinks about Psyonix, before boldly stating he hoped the developer’s staff was watching the stream for his epic rant.
“I hope one of these useless f***s is watching my stream, just one of them. A company full of f***ing brainless monkeys,” the coach added. “It’s great, like what is going on that I’m still lagging in 2021?”
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We don’t know whether or not is was the liberal use of f-bombs, calling Psyonix employees “brainless monkeys” or a combination of the two, but on June 7 Rocket League Esports announced Sizz would “be disqualified from coaching NRG Esports during their upcoming Semifinals match in the North American RLCS X Championship on June 17th, 2021.”
While Psyonix said “We take coach behavior extremely seriously,” his NRG players and members of the community seem to be on the side of Sizz, and don’t believe the punishment was warranted.
The coach didn’t immediately respond to Rocket League’s ruling, but he did retweet NRG pro GarrettG introducing their temporary coaching stand in, who definitely isn’t just Sizz with a moustache and hat photoshopped on.
Due to the temporary ban of our coach for the semis of the championship, I would like to give a warm welcome to temporary stand-in le sízz. Welcome. pic.twitter.com/XKD1FnCDTd
— GarrettG (@GarrettG) June 7, 2021
While NRG will be down a coach during their June 17 match, there’s no signs that this incident will lead to any more serious consequences for Sizz other than missing the Semis. That means if his team are able to make it through, he’ll still be able to coach them during the Championship match.