Capcom has officially banned both Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo and Michael “Theo Lee Ronin” Parks from competing in any Capcom-owned, operated, or licensed events at any level until further notice. This includes the Capcom Pro Tour and Street Fighter League.
For longtime fighting game fans, Infiltration is a name many might recognize. He was one of the top players across several Street Fighter titles, including an Evo 2016 title for Street Fighter V, for years before being dropped from Panda Global and withdrawing from the 2018 CPT season.
The reason for his removal from Panda and subsequent agreement with Capcom to withdraw from the 2018 CPT season, where he was ranked 11th in the world, and also sit out the entire 2019 CPT season centered around allegations about him committing acts of domestic violence in South Korea against his now-former wife in October 2017. Panda and Capcom led an investigation into that incident, with the outcome leaving most fans who look into the matter confused because, while he was arrested for multiple counts of domestic violence and was later “charged with violence,” not much else came of the situation on the legal side.
Infiltration didn’t compete in the CPT as promised, but after a year-long hiatus, he returned to competition at Evo 2019 for Samurai Shodown, winning the event and roughly $28,374. From there, he returned to actively competing in various other tournaments in 2020 and has remained active up until recently when he found himself being barred from two of the biggest fighting game tournaments on the planet—Combo Breaker and Evo 2022.
According to Infiltration, he received an email from Evo informing him that his registration was being refunded from both events because, after review by the tournament organizers, he did not meet the Code of Conduct for the event. This decision was backed by Combo Breaker, Community Effort Orlando (CEO), East Coast Throwdown, and the intercontinental Fight Club, though no specifics were mentioned.
Infiltration spoke out against this decision publicly, garnering some support from within the fighting game community (FGC), but ended up missing Combo Breaker with no further response.
“I stand by the position where mature people can create and come down to a solution with discussions rather than shying away and ignoring the consequences by applying one-sided judgments,” Infiltration said. “But ultimately, the mentioned events from the above emails were CEO, ECT, ICFC, EVO, Combo Breaker and I hope their organizers speak up and explain exactly what the cause of action is that has denied my entry.”
Now, he is claiming that Capcom is joining that list, but it is fairly likely that he was banned for an incident on his stream that went viral on May 20, where he was talking about and saying racial slurs live, which also resulted in a ban on Twitch. This is in line with previous Capcom bans regarding racially insensitive, homophobic, and transphobic conduct.
Along with Infiltration, Michael “Theo Lee Ronin” Parks is also being banned from the CPT indefinitely for multiple conduct violations, which had people wondering just what he had done since he had very little presence in the FGC.
But members of the FGC who do know about Parks spread the word about his consistent use of homophobic and transphobic slurs, along with the fact that he was arrested on charges of domestic violence in April 2021 and convicted of sexual misconduct with a minor in September 2009. He also threatened several people who called him out for his actions on social media, including threatening to travel to another player’s house to confront them.
Both players will remain banned until Capcom overturns this ruling, but it is unlikely that Parks will ever be allowed to compete in Capcom events again with his history.
