Community Effort Orlando has grown to become one of the biggest fighting game tournaments in the world, putting it just below the Evolution Championship Series in terms of both size and importance. The event’s 13 different fighting games were exciting to watch, but in a few cases, the excitement got to be a bit much. One Mortal Kombat 11 match ended with a heated confrontation between the players; a Smash match resulted in the winning player picking up his chair and slamming it onto the stage multiple times; and, elsewhere, two players exchanged punches. CEO’s tournament staffers have not yet responded to Kotaku’s request for comment about these incidents or weighed in on whether CEO intends to make any changes to its safety guidelines for players and attendees.
Post-match celebrations are a hallmark of fighting game competition. Known colloquially as “pop-offs,” these bursts of energy can be fueled by several different emotions. Joy, frustration, and anger have all been known to provide excellent pop-offs, but the best are the ones that are borne of real life rivalry and conflict, as long as they don’t get too heated in the process. One such pop-off at CEO 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11 tournament definitely looked heated.
Leif Boisvert, who has played under the names “Buffalo” and “Daddy” in tournaments, is an up-and-comer in the NetherRealm Studios community. He first made a name for himself in 2016 with the release of Mortal Kombat X, and has since gone on to find success in Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat 11. At just 16 years old, Boisvert has a bright future ahead of him, and he added another accomplishment to his resume at CEO 2019 when he defeated Brad “Scar” Vaughn, one of the best Mortal Kombat players in the world.