Ninja's Weekly 'Fortnite' Series Puts The 'Battles' Back In The Battle Royale

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, famous streamer and "Fortnite" player, has developed his own weekly championship series called Ninja Battles. The online competition is broadcast live on Microsoft's MSFT Mixer platform, where Ninja hosts the action on his own channel.

Each event goes live every Thursday until July 2, with each competition shelling out $80,000 in winnings. The first event of the series took place on May 28 and featured popular players like 2019 Fortnite World Cup champion Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf, FaZe Clan's Soleil “Ewok” Wheeler, and Nate Hill.

The winning trio in the first event consisted of TSM players Anthony ‘ZexRow’ Colandro and Mack “MackWood” Aesoph, and fellow "Fortnite" pro Jonathan “Calc” Weber, who secured a $10,000 prize.

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The Event Wasn't Without Drama

In an interview after the team's victory, ZexRow unloaded a string of vulgar insults toward his competitors. It resulted in him getting banned from future Ninja Battles competitions, and the backlash could even chase him out of TSM's roster. He addressed what happened on Twitter, remembering that "parents watch" and apologized.

Ninja directly replied: "Congrats on your first and last Ninja Battles placement!"

When the backlash continued, ZexRow posted a longer apology:

"I was interviewed and said very very distasteful things, it even would be distasteful to say on my own stream but even more so after winning a tournament and on the Ninja broadcast. I want to directly apologize to Ninja and the tournament organizers for overshadowing what otherwise was a great tournament that was fun to play in with my immature actions. I'm also sorry to TSM and my fans for disappointing you guys, I should live up to the standards of a professional and in that moment I didn't. This is something that I will take some time to reflect on to improve my future behavior."

Despite the toxicity, the first event of the series was an overall success, and the competitors made sure to commend Ninja for hosting it.

"Fortnite" player Ryan "Liquid Chap" Chaplo stated: "Thank you Ninja and Epic Games for the very fun event! Looking forward to playing arena settings next week. Really hope stuff like Ninja Battles is a regular occurrence in the 'Fortnite' scene in the future."

Congrats to @TSM_ZexRow @MackWood1x and @yungcalc On taking the first ever #NinjaBattles Thank you to everyone who participated! See you next week ^_^ pic.twitter.com/eQNJGoXZjf

— Ninja (@Ninja) May 28, 2020