A well-known champion in fighting games named SonicFox left the 2025 Mortal Kombat 1 Finals before getting a medal. They said it was the worst contest they had ever joined.

The Mortal Kombat 1 Pro Kompetition Finals happened over the weekend of September 26 to 28 in Mexico City. Top players from around the world came to compete in the end of a long season that started in January.

Dominique ‘SonicFox’ McLean, who has won the Evo title eight times, made it to the Finals. They won the MK1 Finals last year too. They were number one in the global standings for 2025.

But the event started badly. Players on social media said the place had big problems. Heavy rain caused water to leak and drop on the people talking during the live show.

There were many making-trouble issues with the show. Wrong sound tracks in other languages played over the announcers. Screens stayed up at bad times.

Besides that, some falling parts made organizers start over whole parts of the matches. This slowed everything down and made players upset.

The biggest problem came in one of the top matches. SonicFox was playing against Kanimani in the top eight round. Staff stopped the game right in the middle to fix a sound issue.

Many small errors happen at computer game contests over time. But stopping players during their fight is very rare. They had to start the match over. This upset SonicFox and they ended up in fifth place.

SonicFox skips medal after Mortal Kombat Finals troubles

SonicFox shared their anger on X. They called the Mortal Kombat 1 Pro Kompetition Finals the worst one they had joined. They left the place without taking their medal to show they were mad.

“They really stopped me and Kani in the middle of our match to fix the sound instead of waiting after the round. I am so done with this event,” they said. “This is the first time I have been truly mad at such an event. It ruined my focus completely.”

“I held back all weekend, but they messed up everything from the player lists to the building leaking to stopping our match. Now I do not care. I just want to go home.”

Announcer Evan Hashimoto spoke up too. About the match stop, he said: “They broke the main rule of fair play. This is one of the worst events ever. I feel bad for the players and announcers.”

Production problems

So far, no one from the event has said anything back to the complaints. Players and watchers want explanations. The maker of Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon, was there but has not said anything yet.

This is not the first time tech problems and bad planning hurt a contest. In April 2025, Valorant’s big league in EMEA had to stop its live show. Tech issues paused games many times, so Team Liquid versus Karmine Corp could not play well.