The fighting game community is having a rough start to the new year with one of their oldest community personalities deep into controversy. Arturo “NYCFurby” Sanchez has built up a decorated reputation within the FGC, helping organize big tournaments and play various fighting games for over a decade. Part of that time Arturo was a representative for a company called Matcherino, which gives sponsors a service to put together events and players to join tournaments with big payouts. However, this came to a sudden change right at the start of the new year, which has many within the fighting game community shocked and angry.

On December 30th, 2022 the official Matcherino Twitter account put out a statement severing their working relationship with Arturo Sanchez. The company cited a breaking of terms of service by Arturo and went further to emphasize how he mishandled prize pool funds for events. “… They are no longer associated with Matcherino and will not be allowed to organize events on Matcherino in the future…”

The statement by Matcherino went on to say that they paid out players who were affected by the situation. The claims being made, by many within the FGC who were close to the situation, were how Arturo took money from prize pots that were reserved for players to be paid for competing in various tournaments. While the specific amounts for events that Arturo worked with haven’t been declared, a number of statements from various sources shared numbers that ranged in the thousands of dollars that were not paid out.

Arturo Sanchez afterward made a statement about the situation following the post by the official Matcherino account on Twitter. Arturo tried to explain that everything was an unfortunate mix-up and that payments to players were late on a number of occasions. The reason for that happening was because of a developing family emergency that came up and through everything off schedule. Arturo put out a text statement on his Twitter page, with hopes that Matcherino would clear his name. Despite calls from others within the fighting game community to see it, no evidence or details were given by Arturo to support his story.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Arturo then went onto a live stream on his Twitch channel to discuss the situation and get the facts straight. While the stream itself was deleted following the broadcast, a number of community members saved an archive of the live stream and shared it on other platforms.

On the stream, Arturo tried to give his side of the story and go through some of the statements and accusations being made about him, including conversations on Twitter Spaces by fellow fighting game community member D-Nice. Details of that Twitter Spaces conversation were shared online for others who missed out on it. The stream lasted nearly two hours, with a friend of Arturo entering the conversation with him to ask questions and urge Arturo to share more info that could clear his name within the fighting game community. Arturo unfortunately declined.

“The reason why the payouts were late, I 100% take responsibility for this. I’ve had so many things going on, not only in my personal life, streams, and PC optimization for fighting games, that I did get overwhelmed…” Arturo said during the live stream while addressing comments from his chat.

While players, tournament organizers, and fans of the fighting game community reacted to everything that happened, the biggest news came the next day from Team Spooky on Twitter. The group announced on their page that they would be removing Arturo “NYCFurby” Sanchez from Team Spooky, and wish him luck in his future endeavors. For many, this felt like a confirmation of their worst fears about the situation. Not only was Matcherino making an official statement on Arturo, but one of the biggest groups in the fighting game scene that were associated with him was also doing so.

Since this announcement, there has been no other official word from Matcherino, Team Spooky, or Arturo himself on any platform. While more info could come to light in the coming days following everything that has happened, a lot of damage has been done to Arturo Sanchez’s reputation within the fighting game community. Many figureheads and popular players reacted to all of the news as it came out, with some sharing stories and perspectives on what came out. According to Arturo, Matcherino is still doing an audit on all of the funds and making sure everyone that needed to get paid received their money. For all we know, this controversy may still not be over yet.

Are you shocked by what happened with Matcherino? Have you been part of the fighting game community and participated in tournaments? Share your thoughts on the news down below in the comments!