Smasher:Matt Deezie

Matt Deezie is a Californian tournament director who hosted Tournament Go which revolutionized the competitive scene for Smash. He coined the terms sex kick, shine and chain throw. Though he retired from hosting Smash tournaments in late 2004, he is considered to be the founder of Super Smash Bros. Melee competitive play and the creator of the tournament scene for Super Smash Bros.

History
In 1999, 13 year old Ricky "" Tilton started Smash World Forums, also known as SmashBoards. In 2002 and 2003, the first tournaments began to appear on the website. These community sponsored events slowly grew, with certain tournament series proving to be milestones within the community.

Northern California’s Tournament Go (TG), an underground tournament series, revolutionized the scene in 2002 breaking records in both turnout and prize money. In early 2003 Tournament Go 4 already managed to bring players from across the nation and had a record breaking turnout of 89 entrants, by its sixth incarnation in the summer of 2004; Matt Deezie’s small local tournaments had exploded into a hundred person national affair. Not by coincidence, it was this same summer that the case was made for Smash to be added to Major League Gaming’s (MLG) tournament roster.

In March 2003, the IVGF NorthWest Regional Gaming Festival and Tournament, the first corporate sponsored tournament, was hosted in Bellevue, Washington. During this time IVGF gave out a record $US 12,500 for the top three finishers of Super Smash Bros. Melee, a record that would be held for almost three years. Matt Deezie is thought to have finished 2nd at the tournament and won $3000.

Unlike other tournaments at the time (2002-2004) Matt Deezie created a much more professional environment by spending his own money for prizes and travel stipends, accommodating living expenses by renting hotel rooms, and for bringing Japanese smashers, including Japan's best player at the time (2004),, to the US. As a result Matt Deezie is credited with helping develop both the national and international scene.

Matt Deezie became inactive with the Smash community after 2004. Since his involvement in the Smash community ended, he has been working at Capcom as their Senior Product Manager on the fighting game brands as well as being the director of brand marketing and eSports. He used to host the Street Fighter X Tekken talk show Cross Assault. On October 4th, 2017, Matt Deezie announced his departure from Capcom USA, an occupation he had for nearly a decade.