Smash community split as ZeRo announces new tournament for banned players

Former Super Smash Bros pro Gonzalo ‘ZeRo’ Barrios has announced a special new tournament series featuring banned players and the community is split on the decision.

ZeRo made a big name for himself in Smash during the Wii U days, winning 56 tournaments in a row, cementing his name as one of the best in the franchise’s history, but sexual misconduct allegations hurt his legacy.

Despite the Chilean taking his former roommate Jacqueline ‘Jisu’ Choe to court over certain claims, causing her to “fully delete” the allegations, the esports star remains banned on Twitch and Smash events.

With a history of knowing what being ‘canceled’ is like, on May 15, ZeRo announced that he would be “giving back” to the community by launching his own tournament featuring banned players.

ZeRo unveils banned Smash player tournaments

According to ZeRo, there are quite a few people who have expressed interest in being in these tournaments, partly because Smash has a bunch of players who have been banned from competing.

That said, Barrios isn’t letting just anyone who is banned compete, regardless of what some people are claiming on social media. The Smash content creator explained that he would take things on a case-by-case basis.

“My objective is not to necessarily host a tournament just to invite a bunch of criminals and people who are banned, because the reality is that there are people who are banned that should be banned because they did horrible things,” he said.

This means fans shouldn’t expect players who allegedly killed their mothers or slapped rivals after losing to be invited to these events.

However, ZeRo went on to state that there are a handful of players whose bans “don’t make sense” and he will handpick certain individuals who he feels should be allowed to play.

Additionally, players don’t have to be “banned” in order to compete and Barrios further indicated plans to crowdfund a prize pool to give the players a bigger chunk of money to win.

Smash community torn on “banned” player tournament

Across Twitter, numerous players voiced their thoughts on ZeRo’s announcement with being in favor of it while others felt it was a bad idea.

“Honestly, who cares. Let them do their own thing. They’re all still banned and aren’t welcome in the community so let them have their own little community. If we just ignore it it shouldn’t affect anyone at all unless you let it bother you,” commented Epic Gabriel.

“He sounded reasonable at least. I’m not gonna support the series, but he’s not doing anything bad to anyone with this,” another remarked.

Meanwhile, YouTuber Technicals, who released a documentary defending ZeRo, put claims he was inviting criminals on blast, accusing them of trying to “bait” the community.

You can hate on ZeRo without lying about what he said in the video. He did not say he was gonna crowdfund people's favorite criminals and he specifically mentions not allowing the types you're implying, as it's more catered towards frivolous or excessive bans. Nice bait tho https://t.co/7yGXyPbPdY

— Technicals 👾 (@Technicals_) May 16, 2023

So far, it’s not known who ZeRo will have at his first tournament or how many people will tune in to see the action, but it will be interesting for fans of banned Smash Ultimate players to see the competitors in action again.