If you were on social media over the past few weeks, you might have seen some footage of men without shirts at a fighting game tournament. Specifically, playing Tekken, as a wild and raucous crowd egged them on. In an effort to share one of eSports’ more peculiar traditions, I feel compelled to break this down from the start.

Below, you’ll find the timestamped moment when Combo Breaker 2025 in Illinois turned into a pepperoni fest. The shirts came off, and the matches really got going.

Fighting games are the black sheep of all competitive video games, and the FGC (fighting game community) feels distinct from the likes of the first-person shooters, real-time strategies, and card games played for big prize pools. It’s truly grassroots, fueled by memes, and it’s flush with degenerates, pop offs, fist fights, a ton of other street-level, dingy, dirty people.

Giant stadiums, corporate sponsors, teams with matching uniforms, and televised tournaments might be the norm for “League of Legends” or “Counter-Strike” but the FGC is still owned and operated by 40-year-old vets, straight from the arcades, still playing the same old games and inspiring new generations of players. Our GOATs are still showing up, making content, and organizing their own events.

The History

Back in 2015, South Korean player Poongko (who used to be quite godlike at “Street Fighter IV” with his Seth) got so hype that he took his shirt off. Can’t tell you exactly why, maybe it was because he was losing a set to Smug’s Dudley, but it powered him up like Goku going Super Saiyan. He still ended up losing, but it was a great moment!

Poongko always has a flair for the dramatic, and maybe being up on a stage brings that theatricality out in the FGC. It’s just you, the floor, the fans, and the screen. You bring your own controller/fight stick, and there’s no coaching. Do or die — win or lose. Here’s him downing a Red Bull to beat the then two-time defending EVO champ and my personal greatest of all-time Daigo Umehara in the top four of 2011’s EVO for “Street Fighter IV.”

And wouldn’t you know it, the community kept the bit going. Early in pools, this guy took his shirt off, and challenged the topless king at his own game. It quickly turned into a memorable and exciting moment in the history of EVO, the biggest eSports tournament held each year.

So that’s why you might see this keep happening; it’s a fun tribal thing these players like to do. It’s harmless fun that everyone loves. Mostly. Memetic behavior like this tend to happen at big, community-driven events in the FGC quite often. Maybe not so much the male nudity part, but similar types of nonsense.

Sometimes games are held in a boxing ring, or in a cage (an homage to WWE), and sometimes you go from being a baby-faced hero to villain immediately after stealing victory from a child on stream.

This is the magic of the FGC. Anyone can enter, anyone can become a story line, and anyone can win. No age restriction, no discrimination, just enter and see what happens. You can even get Daigo as your very first match — just like commentator/content creator Woolie did back in 2012.

Moments like this don’t tend to happen anywhere else, for any other game. There’s a freeing, liberating sense of “we make our own stories, and no company gets to tell us what to do” that the FGC has. It’s so grassroots, so unique in the world of gaming. The mix of trash talk and rivalry. The decades long story lines that naturally occur don’t even happen in sports because those players retire. Whereas a 50-year-old pro from Japan could wipe the floor with 99% of players right now if he wanted to. And that’s why I love fighting games and the people who play them. Because they are NUTS. Passionate, but totally unhinged.

Image Credit: Armin Lotfi