Another tournament, another big win for Juan ‘HungryBox’ DeBiedma and another scandal. This time, Smash players are demanding the Melee pro stop slamming chairs during pop offs.
Hungrybox is one of the top Smash players in the world, frequently placing at or near the top at any tournament he attends and is regarded as the best Jigglypuff main in the world.
Despite his success, there have been a few controversies in the Smash God’s career including recently competing without a mask at DoubleDown after coughing up blood earlier.
Now, the Team Liquid star is under fire again, this time for a different kind of smashing when he picked up a chair at WaveDash 2022 and destroyed it in celebration much to the shock of those in attendance.
Smash community wants HungryBox to cease annihilating chairs
After DeBiedma pulled off an impressive reverse sweep in the Grand Final reset against Jake ‘Jmook’ DiRado, he picked up his chair and slammed it on the ground like he was in the WWE.
The moment was captured on stream in what was one of the wildest pop offs we’ve seen, but some players are concerned that this could type of celebration could hurt someone.
Fellow pro Cody ‘iBDW’ Schwab, someone who has been critical about Hbox’s pop offs in the past, suggested weighing chairs at events down to stop any sort of potential travesty from occurring.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
“Low key just put weights on the chairs before someone actually gets hurt from a popoff and not just hit by a chair,” he remarked.
In a follow-up, he clarified that while Hungrybox made him concerned about the possibility of a chair hurting someone, he had seen other people at events send chairs flying with their pop offs as well.
Others were a bit more critical of the celebration, calling it bad sportsmanship and saying there was “no excuse” to pick up a chair and slam it.
Hungrybox himself responded to the concerns by replying to a tweet by Cloud 9’s Joseph ‘Mango’ Marquez who jokingly suggested inflatable chairs at tournaments by remarking “give popping off a whole new definition.”
It’s not clear if Hbox plans to cool it with the chair smashing, but TOs might want to think about implementing a rule about destroying chairs if the Clutch Puff is in attendance.