Mike “The Mouth” Matusow had a Mike Matusow day at the 2020 World Series of Poker Online this past weekend. But even after threatening violence upon a player who had the audacity to beat him in a hand, even after a little demonstration of misogyny, and even after just generally being a complete asshole, Caesars Entertainment and the WSOP will not hand down any sort of discipline.
WSOP throws its hands up
In a message to PocketFives, WSOP executive director Ty Stewart cited the “slippery slope” of potentially regulating content of a personal stream, “particularly as each of these third-party platforms have their own escalation procedures.”
“We reserve the right to suspend the account of any individual going forward, but in this case, it appears the player had the perfect response to resolve the situation herself,” he added.
Never mind that plenty of esports leagues and teams have had no problem suspending or firing a player for things said in a non-competition Twitch stream. Doesn’t seem like anyone has slipped down any sort of slope.
But it’s the internet
If Matusow had gone on his rant at the live World Series of Poker, he would most certainly have been punished somehow, though since he was eliminated within two hands, some of those disciplinary options would have been off the table (no pun intended). Thus, it is odd that the WSOP, which has hyped the WSOP Online as being a legitimate version of the World Series of Poker, bracelets and all, is now treating it differently because the players are not interacting in person.
The WSOP made what is probably the correct decision in disabling chat on WSOP.com during the Series “in order to create a safe gaming experience for players,” but that admirable goal is kind of tossed to the curb when players can just go ahead and threaten each other via other means of communication.
It was a bad scene
To review, on his first hand of the 2020 WSOP Online Event #5, Matusow moved all-in with A-Q on a Ten-high flop, only to be called by a player named “wolverine17,” who had Aces. Aces won, Matusow was eliminated on the next hand, and he went off on his live YouTube stream, primarily because he thought wolverine17 was slowrolling him (the player gasps actually thought about their decision).
“This motherf**ker,” he said. “I’m gonna f**k him right in his f**king ass, man. Mark that name down, ‘wolverine17.’ What the f**k is wrong with these f**king people?”
And here’s where he threatens physical violence: “I am going to find out who this motherf**ker is, and I swear to you, I am going to throw him up against the f**king wall, and tell him if you ever slowroll me again, I’m going to beat your f**king ass.”
There’s a lot more, like when he rants a couple times about wolverine17 probably being a “leftist,” whatever the hell that irrelevant political swerve is supposed to mean.
Matusow went on to ask viewers to doxx his opponent, to make the person’s identity known. Someone did, which is entirely out of bounds, but in the end, because wolverine17 cashed, the WSOP posted her name in the standings, so it didn’t matter.
Oh yes, wolverine17 is a woman named Megan Milburn. So because of that, Matusow switched to calling her a c**t. Nice.
Milburn, to her credit, simply responded to him on Twitter by saying, ““Lol it wasn’t intentional! The next one might be tho”
Matusow apologized publicly and allegedly privately.