The Chengdu Hunters Overwatch League team fined player Zhihao “YangXiaoLong” Zhang for remarks made towards popular Overwatch streamer and content creator Becca “Aspen” Rukavina. The team will deduct the fine from YangXiaoLong’s full month’s salary. In addition, he will also lose his second stage’s bonus.
The official Chengdu Hunters twitter account posted a statement regarding the issue, saying, “We have already severely reprimanded and educated our player, YangXiaoLong, on his misbehavior…” The post went on to state that the team “will take this as a lesson to more thoroughly educate each of our players, and prevent such incidents from happening again.” Aspen replied to the tweet and accepted the apology, saying she “thought YXL [YangXiaoLong] was SBB [Jong-Ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park] and that he was joking around.”
No recordings of the incident have surfaced. There are several rumors circulating, including a clip of a player harassing Aspen on her stream with homophobic slurs. However, the Chengdu Hunters stated that this clip does not depict the incident in question. They also stated that the player featured in the clip is not YangXiaoLong.
None of the statements made by the Hunters or their players suggest that YangXiaoLong will be barred from playing in the Overwatch League in the future. There has also been no official statement from YangXiaoLong concerning the incident.
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Featured image courtesy of the Chengdu Hunters
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