Evo 2020 Tournament Canceled After Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat Withdraw Support

A fighting game tournament without two major fighting game franchises just cannot be held. That is the prospect that 2020 Evolution Championship Series (a.k.a. Evo 2020) fighting game tournament faced after Capcom’s “Street Fighter” and NetherRealm’s “Mortal Kombat” both pulled their support from the tournament.

ScreenRant reports that developers and competitors walked away from Evo Online following allegations of sexual misconduct against Evo CEO Joey Cuellar. Also known as “Mr. Wizard,” Cuellar is being accused of sexually exploiting members of the gaming community, including minors.

Although not directly related to Evo 2020, several competitive “Super Smash Bros.” players were also separately accused of sexual assault against minors in recent days.

A physical Evo 2020 event was originally scheduled to be held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel Resort and Casino in Las Vegas from July 31 to August 2, 2020 but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that was canceled. Organizers instead planned a series of online events running from July 4 to August 2, 2020.

Starting in 1996 as “Battle by the Bay,” a 40-man “Super Street Fighter II Turbo” and “Street Fighter Alpha 2” tournament was held in Sunnyvale, California. By 2002, the event had changed into the Evolution Championship Series (or Evo for short) and was held on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles.

As news of the allegations against Cuellar spread, prominent names began to drop out of Evo 2020. One of the first to speak up was Dominique “SonicFox” McLean, a star of the competitive fighting game scene, who announced on Twitter that they would no longer be taking part in Evo 2020.

Soon enough, developers and publishers began posted on Twitter that they would not be participating in the event. Among the biggest names to withdraw were Capcom, NetherRealm, and Bandai Namco. Not long after that, Evo 2020 was officially canceled.

Along with shuttering the tournament, ScreenRant reports that organizers of Evo 2020 pledged to take steps to make it “a better model for the stronger, safer culture we all seek.” Evo will refund all the money already collected for ticket sales and will donate to Project HOPE, a global health organization, equal to a portion of proceeds it previously promised.

Cuellar himself has been removed from his post at Evo, with the company saying that it has “relieved him of all his responsibilities” and is “working on his complete separation.”