I can think of a lot of ways to lose a major Smash Bros. Melee tournament with $2,000 on the line, but this might be one of the strangest. Fourth-ranked Kurtis “moky” Pratt was in the Full House 2025 finals, but idly wavedashing in-between level transformations on the Pokémon Stadium stage sent his Fox McCloud through the floor and into an early grave.
moky was facing off against second-ranked Cody Schwab in the finals of the Smash Bros. Melee Major tournament when both got caught in the fire forest phase of Pokémon Stadium. With both players separated by one of the obstacles, they twitched back and forth, biding their time to see who would make the first move. It ended up being Pratt, though perhaps not in the way he intended. A rare glitch saw him accidentally fall straight through the level, cementing Schwab’s victory and the $2,000 first place prize.
The glitch is triggered by wavedashing, a physics exploit common in high-level Melee that lets players maneuver quickly without leaving them vulnerable. Doing so around the tree in the fire forest phase of the Pokémon Stadium stage, however, opens players up to an uncommon but well-known glitch that will send them falling through the level geometry. Guest commentator Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma, who lost to Pratt earlier in the tournament, even mentioned the possibility on air, just moments before it unfolded on-screen.
“There’s just no way LMAO,” Pratt posted on X after the match. Not everyone is convinced it was an accident, however. How could a player as skilled and experienced as Pratt succumb to such a one-in-a-million bug? Did he lose that way on purpose because it would be funny, or to prove a point about why certain levels should be banned? Then again, is a briefly viral Twitch clip really worth $2,000? In this economy?
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