In a Facebook post yesterday afternoon, Ian “Eikelmann” Mooney announced that he would be taking an indefinite leave from the competitive Smash scene. This announcement comes after leaders of the Colorado Melee scene publicly announced that Eikelmann would be banned from their local scene, releasing a Google document containing statements from the player’s former partners (themselves members of the Smash scene) detailing years of physical and emotional abuse at Eikelmann’s hands alongside the player’s threatening or disrespectful behavior at tournaments.
Since gaining notoriety through the Apex 2015 Salty Suite, where he lost a highly publicized set to Jason “Bizzarro Flame” Yoon in spectacular fashion, Eikelmann has become a relatively well-known smasher. Over the years, he’s gained a reputation as one of the world’s most prominent Ganondorf mains thanks to career highlights that include a victory over Johnny “S2J” Kim at Rev2016 and a game win over Adam “Armada” Lindgren at CEO 2014.
The allegations written by Eikelmann’s former partners, however, tell a different story. In May, Lady Lightning, an ex with whom Eikelmann cohabited in Florida, tweeted about his disloyalty to her and threatening statements that he had made during their relationship. On September 4, she doubled down, revealing that the Ganondorf player had continued to publicly trash her in his Twitter bio despite the fact that they were no longer in contact with each other.
A deluge of statements from other members of the community followed Lady Lightning’s public declarations about Eikelmann’s behavior, with many smashers revealing their own accounts of his rude behavior at events, including incidents involving the Russian-American player stealing from his hosts, spitting on an opponent after losing a money match, and aggressively refusing to compete unless specific conditions were met.
Amid the storm of accusations, a blog post surfaced that had been written in 2015 by a former partner of Eikelmann’s, describing his physical abuse of his partner after he discovered that Eikelmann had been cheating on him.
The situation became even murkier when it was revealed that Bizzarro Flame had instructed his fiancé, a paralegal-in-training, to aid Eikelmann in convincing his victims to cover up or remove their allegations in exchange for his exit from the community. In a tweeted statement, Bizzarro Flame admitted that his actions were morally wrong and claimed that he had been motivated to help Eikelmann due to guilt he had felt after defeating him so handily at Apex 2015.
In his Facebook post, Eikelmann appeared to admit to wrongdoing, promising to leave the community in order to better himself. However, he expressed a hope that he would one day be permitted to participate in the Smash community again.
Whether or not that occurs has yet to be seen, as community leaders have not yet determined a set course of action for dealing with players, such as Eikelmann, Bronson “DaShizWiz” Layton, and James “Mafia” Lauerman, who have faced misconduct allegations in recent memory. Until now, such cases have been dealt with by leaders within each player’s local community, but as victims are emboldened to speak out and a wave of allegations have surfaced against prominent competitors, it’s becoming clear that a standard course of action is necessary in order to determine the most appropriate punishment for these players’ misdeeds.
