TSM Fortnite player Anthony “ZexRow” Colandro is facing serious backlash after Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ Fortnite tournament. The 19-year-old finished first in the first week of the Ninja Battles tournament. Fortnite teamed up with the popular content creator Ninja to create a tournament that would take place every Thursday from May 28 to July 2. Each tournament would have an $80,000 prize pool with the top team taking home $25,000.
ZexRow entered the invite-only tournament with teammate Mack “MackWood”Aesoph and Jonathan “YungCalc” Weber and gave an interview after the matches. In the interview, ZexRow proceeded to say vulgar things about those who didn’t place in the top 10 on a kid-friendly stream. The unprofessional interview sparked outrage among the Fortnite and esports community, with the player saying, “Everyone that didn’t place top ten can like, suck my d***. They’re f***ing sh*tters. I don’t know why they talk sh*t because they’re actually all so dog sh*t and brain dead.” Fortunately, hosts quickly recovered and moved on after ZexRow’s comments.
Here is the @TSM_ZexRow clip for those who didn't see it. He said that on ninjas trio fortnite tournament pic.twitter.com/D4hzME8m6E
— Simon (@GWAFUTURE) May 28, 2020
ZewRow’s backlash
Soon after the show ended Ninja took to Twitter to congratulate the winners. In his video, Ninja seemed stoked about how well the first tournament went. However, he made sure that ZexRow knew that his comments after Ninja Battles weren’t appreciated. He replied to ZexRow’s tweet about how he forgot parents were watching the stream.
Congrats on your first and last Ninja battles placement!
— Ninja (@Ninja) May 28, 2020
Ninja wasn’t the only one to comment on ZexRow’s actions as tons of outraged fans took to Twitter to comment. In addition to the comments of disgust and disappointment, some suggested that TSM remove ZexRow completely. The teenager attempted to defuse the situation with two separate apology tweets. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough to stop people from demanding his removal from TSM entirely.
Since you guys really want me to get dropped from tsm, I'll ask them if I can leave. It was a big mistake but I've made a lot of those so at this point I feel as I'm 2 much of a pr nightmare, I just feel bad for tsm and all the hate they'll get for this.
— ZexRow (@TSM_ZexRow) May 29, 2020
ZexRow’s teammates YungCalc and MackWood took to Twitter to state their opinions on the situation. MackWood stated that “If ZexRow leaves I leave,” while YungCalc worried about his own reputation moving forward.
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