Melee pro Frenzy found himself trapped in an illegal taxi being chased by the police when he competed in Genesis 9.
Super Smash Bros. Melee pro Elliot "Frenzy" Grossman had a cursed taxi ride from Tabuu himself.
Frenzy is a talented Falco player from Europe that is ranked 47th in the SSBMRank for 2022. He was recently at Genesis 9 but his journey across the pond was not what he expected. While players may expect a Hungrybox pop-off or a controller being thrown here or there, no Smash player would ever predict what happened to Frenzy.
When he arrived at Genesis 9, Frenzy left the airport and ended up almost getting kidnapped. He jumped out of the car, got bruised up, and headed to the hospital.
"Honestly got very lucky that the police appeared so fast that the car wasn’t moving too fast and that I fell in a way that didn’t get me hit by a car. Could’ve very easily had much worse injuries or even died," he said that day.
The strange and scary incident started to make its rounds online and Kotaku reached out to Frenzy about the potential kidnapping. He shared more about what happened to him in an email.
Frenzy reveals details behind illegal taxi incident at Genesis 9
Frenzy had an 11-hour flight from London Heathrow Airport to the San Francisco International Airport, where he planned to get an Uber to his hotel in San Jose, the city where Genesis 9 was being held. But the long flight had drained his phone battery. Instead of an Uber, Frenzy decided he'd get a taxi.
A driver approached him and the interaction seemed normal enough at first. The driver even opened the door for him. But when he looked out the window of the vehicle, he saw multiple police officers with weapons drawn and racing toward the car. As the police yelled for him to stop the vehicle, the driver "accelerated immediately." At this point, Frenzy panicked.
"In the moment I just decided that if I got out quick enough, it was safer than either the driver getting away and being at his mercy or getting involved in a police chase which could end in a crash at higher speeds," Frenzy explained.
He decided to "bail out" right when the car was starting to take off. While he was understandably caught off guard, he still managed to roll out of the vehicle. Luckily, he didn't land badly but he was in "pretty serious pain." His right hand had taken most of the impact, but it was luckily just swelling and bruising according to the hospital.
Frenzy then spoke with police about what had happened and learned that he'd been "running this scheme" for quite some time. Frenzy said that he was familiar with the illegal taxi scam but was probably too tired to have noticed at the time. Luckily, the man was in handcuffs the last time Frenzy saw him.
While Frenzy ended up underperforming at Genesis 9, he told Kotaku that he enjoyed the event overall and was excited to return next year. Let's just hope he doesn't have to jump out of a moving vehicle to get to Genesis 10.
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