Super Smash Con banned Super Smash Bros Ultimate player CaptainZack who admitted to asking pro player Ally to throw his matches in the wake of a sexual abuse controversy.
Top Smash player Zack “CaptainZack” Lauth admitted last month to a relationship with fellow Smash pro Elliot “Ally” Carroz-Oyarce. At the time of the relationship, Ally was 27 and Zack was 16. This lead to the voluntary retirement of Carroz-Oyarce, who later owned up to the relationship himself. The situation divided the Smash community, who spent the aftermath of the retirement arguing whether or not Ally did wrong by pursuing a relationship with the minor. Zack, on the other hand, left Twitter for a while, but returned to a welcoming community.
Now, Zack has admitted to asking Ally to throw matches during two major Smash competitions. In a post on TwitLonger, the Smash pro details his emotional state throughout the relationship, saying that during competitions he would “purposely be mean” to Ally. Zack says he wanted out of the relationship, and hoped his demeanor would push Ally away. He explains that his turmoil over the relationship caused him to resent Ally for winning matches at a time when his own play had begun to suffer. Zack is a Bayonetta main, and cites the character's changes in Smash Ultimate as the reason for his decline. He also says that he believed Ally shouldn’t be allowed to compete.
All of this lead to Zack asking Ally to throw matches at two high profile Super Smash Bros Ultimate tournaments. The first was against Smash Pro Zackray at the Prime Saga tournament, and then a second against Smash Pro Nairo at Momocon. Zack claims in his post that he never used his relationship with Ally as leverage, although it does seem the request was brought about by the stress of the relationship weighing on him.
After Zack came clean, the staff at Super Smash Con released a statement to gaming website Polygon in which it stated that it would not to allow him to compete in their upcoming tournament.
Based on information provided by Zack on Twitter, the tournament staff at Super Smash Con felt it was inappropriate to allow Zack to compete in our event. Attempting to fix the outcome of a match is strictly forbidden in our rulebook and those were grounds used to make this decision.
According to Dexerto, Polar Ace Sports has also also dropped Zack's sponsorship. Zack responded to the ban on Twitter, saying that he will gladly take responsibility for his actions.
In Zack’s post on TwitLonger, he says that he and Ally had discussed the issue of fixing the matches, and both decided to let it go. It’s clear both pros had complicated feelings about the relationship and neither wanted it to go public. But once information about the relationship and the cheating began to leak, both players had to come clean.
Zack’s troubling emotional state comes through in the post. It’s clear the teenager found himself in a situation that he did not know how to handle, and that coming clean to his community in this way has been tough. It remains to see if Zack will get the chance to compete again in the future.