The Tekken 8 pools at CEO 2025 had one of the most bizarre and chaotic matches in fighting game history, a set where one player who named himself “Joe Budden” beat Tekken pro Bilal with a 2-0 win only to get disqualified from the tournament literal seconds after the win.
Fighting game tournaments can have some pretty bizarre moments with thousands of people packed in one convention center. People will often dress as their favorite characters to compete, build an insane custom controller, get coached by their dog, or rip their shirts off on stage.
However, “Joe Budden” had a brief match against Tekken pro Bilal that’s one for the history books. Joe’s known as a ranked grinder for Tekken 8 who typically plays online and uses a very aggressive playstyle with Claudio that’s often rage-inducing for his opponent.
Joe proved that this strategy can work against the very best, beating a top-tier player who traveled to CEO all the way from Pakistan without losing a game… only to get disqualified seconds later after he rushed backstage and threw a package of toilet paper at the commentators.
To be clear, this Joe Budden has absolutely no connection to popular rapper/songwriter Joe Budden. That’s just his username in-game.
He’s one of many North American players who doesn’t travel often but is an absolute menace online. These kinds of players can often get surprising results, even against pro players who compete full-time.
This was the case when he fought Bilal on-stage, with him taunting the pro player by Ki Charging (Tekken’s version of taunting) after every round he won.
He took the momentum from that first win straight into the second game, taking a 2-0 win over Bilal even if the individual rounds were very close.
He celebrated by putting some toilet paper in front of the camera and putting his finger in front of the words “Ultra Soft”, on the packaging. But what isn’t shown in the video is him rushing backstage and tossing the pack of toilet paper to the commentators.
“MF DOOM came backstage and tried to throw the ULTRA SOFT at me and spooky lmao,” said commentator MarkMan. Both him and Spooky were good sports about it, turning the ordeal into part of the broadcast and making jokes about it.
However, despite them taking it on the chin, tournament officials were forced to DQ him as is reflected in his tournament results. He would have been set to fight in the Winner’s bracket for a chance at top 24, but both his matches show up as DQs.
“He was DQ’d because he went to the backstage area (which is a big no no unless you’re working there), was being held back by one of the TOs and still pushed forward against warnings to do what he did,” Markman explained.
“We (commentary) have no say in what happens because we were still doing commentary. The event leads/organizers decided to take action based on what happened.”
Joe’s been traveling a lot this year, with him even going to EVO Japan to try and compete. He’s clearly a serious competitor, and he could have a shot at beating some of the best Tekken pros. As long as he keeps the toilet paper at home.
