Fighting game pro Victor Woodley, better known as Punk, says he lost a match at fighting game event Evo Japan this weekend not because of a skill issue, but because of a PlayStation 5 “malfunction” that’s plagued previous tournaments. Punk blasted Evo organizers for not addressing the issue, and said he won’t compete in future tournaments if the problem persists.
“PS5 is so ass,” Punk posted on X (formerly Twitter), saying he lost at Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves due to a “PS5 malfunction where it will make your pad walk backwards and nothing else works.” Punk said the same thing happened at last year’s Evo Japan during a Street Fighter 6 match.
Punk wrote on X, “If this PS5 problem consists and TOs just keep making players lose games to things that isn’t them actually losing to the player and rather the console they make us play on because, they decide to run tournaments on this console i will personally stop attending tournaments. I spend tons of hours practicing, traveling, spending money to go to these events and stuff like overheating PS5s controlling the outcome of a set is literally the same feeling as someone spitting on you.”
Punk is one of the most popular players in the fighting game scene. He solidified his legacy over the last few years with strong results in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Capcom Pro Tours. He has placed highly in multiple fighting game tournaments and is the current Street Fighter 6 Evo champion. His posts about the PS5 issue have reached nearly 1 million views combined.
When Punk posted his frustrations, his detractors immediately wrote him off as someone salty about losing a game. But some FGC members posted similar stories; a similar issue happened in Guilty Gear Strive sets. Some contestants complained about PS5s overheating, causing frames to plummet and controller inputs to stop working.
Evo Japan had multiple problems with consoles and setup this year, according to those who frequented the event. Evo Japan, which debuted in 2018 as a spinoff of the main Evo tournament, has a history of console malfunctions affecting sets and even ruining the top 8 of multiple games. Viewers and competitors hope for a solution before the next event.
Polygon reached out to Punk for further comment regarding his experiences at Evo Japan and PlayStation representatives for an official statement about the reported technical issues. We’ll update this story when both parties respond.
