It ain’t over till it’s over
The story of the seven collections behind the 2023 ESports World Cup medals
The story of the 7 medals of the 2023 ESports World Championship did not end with the announcement of the winners. Weather, organizational chaos and a bit of bad luck meant that the medals could not be handed out to the seven winners on the closing day of the championships (September 3, 2023), so the adventure continues. The seven medals will go to the 7 countries where the winners of this year’s edition come from: Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sweden and, with them, we will also tell the seven stories behind these collections.
To begin with, hail to the winners!
Part 1 — The Giant
Tekken was one of two competitions where the winner is a single player and not a team.. Ever since playing Tekken meant pulling a lever and pressing two buttons in the first electronic games, player skill has translated into speed, coordination and unpredictable decisions. Of all the ESports games, the ones where there is a single player leading a single character in an every-man-for-himself battle have something of the puppeteer-puppet relationship dynamic. If we go down the time scale a little, we will discover that the first meaning of the verb to animate is related to giving life. In the course of this shift in meaning, moving becomes animating, and the way a video game player maneuvers the avatar they control becomes a mark of the uniqueness of this binomial. The final between Atif But and AK is proof of this fact:
The winner of the final was Atif But, a player who is widely recognised for being able to play many characters at top-level. Atif accumulated many of his major Tekken 7 wins with Akuma, including this final, but the character which embodies his 2023 world champion title tells a different story.
Get Dan Radu Mihai’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Look up the ranking of the tallest boxers in the world and you’ll find names that even the most die-hard boxing fans won’t recognize. It is true that this kind of ranking is one that, not infrequently, ridicules sport and competition, but it belongs to a kind of pathology of axiology combined with the attraction of the grotesque, both born from the old panem et circenses. On the first position of this ranking is Gogea Mitu, a Romanian who only played three boxing matches. He is one of the first athletes to inaugurate a long line of characters who have tried to overcome their freak of nature condition. Sports and cinema have names that have acquired a celebrity not infrequently loaded with tragedy, whether they were called Andre “The Giant” Rene Roussimoff, Matthew McGrory or Richard Kiel.
Why should Gogea Mitu be the character to embody the Tekken World Champion award? One of the basic principles of Mocapart is this: “Every single Mocapart collection celebrates someone or something worth remembering,” and the story of Gogea Mitu, that you can find in detail here, in a material that can be the basis of a scenario for a Tim Burton film, is one that can create a bridge between the world of video games and the real world.
The Giant stands as a profound representation of human history’s complexities and tragedies. Adorned with a robe featuring Quapaw Lord Orry, a reminder of the unfulfilled bout with the world Box Heavy Weight Champion, The Giant seeks for his digital redemption. With every strike, he aims to shed light on the plight of those used for others’ amusement, honoring their resilience and rewriting their legacy in a new world of virtual combat.
Finally, I propose a little imagination exercise. Here is a still frame from the fight between Atif But and AK.
Of course in the foreground are the two fighters, seconded by the players who control them and the emotions present on their faces, but I suggest you focus on the background where this fight takes place. A watermelon seller from a suburb watches absently as the two fight. It’s a familiar place for many of us, a place where they started through the dark labyrinths of competition, glory seekers, athletes or video game players. That place is the soil where the roots of all those who have succeeded or not are caught, and the story of Gogea Mitu, The Giant is one of those roots that deserves to be preserved and carried forward along with the symbol it represents.
to be continued
