The Tekken World Tour 2025 Finals are approaching quickly. While fans are excited to watch the best players compete in Sweden, a serious cheating scandal has emerged. Several players who qualified are now under investigation for manipulating the system.
The Tekken World Tour aims to be a global competition. Besides major events like Evo, Combo Breaker, and CEO, the tour includes smaller tournaments called Dojo events. These are run by local organizers and offer fewer points than big tournaments, but they still contribute to the overall rankings.
Dojo points are important because they help players qualify for the finals. If a player earns the most points in their region, they get a free ticket to the championship. While this system helps highlight talent worldwide, some players are allegedly exploiting it to qualify unfairly.
There is significant evidence against three players: Raef “Raef” Alturkistani, Adrian “Allidar” Cabradilla, and Noel “Noel” Eduardo. Reports indicate that fake players were signing up for their tournaments to reach the required 96 participants. This inflated the numbers, allowing these players to earn the maximum Dojo points.
How the Cheating Allegedly Happened
To understand the issue, it is important to know how players qualify for the finals. There are three main ways: placing high on the global leaderboard, topping the regional rankings, or winning the last chance qualifier.
Getting points from major tournaments is straightforward because they are well-regulated. However, Dojo events are different. To get full points, a Dojo needs 96 players. Bandai Namco does not closely monitor these events. The only requirement is that players register on the start.gg website. This creates a trust-based system that is easy to abuse.
For example, in tournaments organized by Allidar, many players reportedly disqualified themselves. In some cases, players would drop to the lower bracket, play a match, and then quit. The timelines for these matches often did not make sense.
The organizers of the GESF tournaments eventually removed Allidar from their team after public backlash. However, they claimed that over 60 players showed up for the Tekken event. While this is a high number for a small location, it is still far below the 100+ entrants needed for the highest point tier.
Despite acknowledging that Allidar’s involvement compromised the competition’s integrity, the TWT only slightly reduced his points. A tournament with 104 players was downgraded to a 64+ Dojo. Yet, video footage of the event shows a small room that could not possibly hold 64 people, let alone over 100.
There are also reports of Allidar mentioning that a teacher convinced 40 students to sign up. These students were not experienced Tekken players, which essentially stacked the deck in his favor and inflated the participant count.
As a result, Allidar finished the season just 30 points ahead of Australian player William “Bobby” Bondarenko on the regional leaderboard. If any of Allidar’s tournaments had been classified as 48+ or 32+ Dojos instead, Bobby would have qualified instead of him. The Australian Tekken community is understandably furious about this outcome.
Bobby expressed his frustration, stating that it is disheartening to see Bandai Namco ignore clear evidence of cheating. He mentioned reaching out to the company and the TWT support team but received no response. He hopes the next season will be handled better.
Saudi professional player Raef is facing similar accusations. Tournaments in Saudi Arabia featured several names that appeared to be AI-generated. These accounts were created just before a November 4 tournament and have not participated in any other events.
Furthermore, the video recordings of Raef’s tournaments were supposed to be on his Twitch channel. However, the videos were deleted, and no footage currently exists. This violates TWT rules, which require video proof for results to be valid. Despite this, Raef’s points remain on the official leaderboard.
These points helped Raef reach the top 20 on the global leaderboard, potentially knocking out North American pro Shadow20z. Other North American players have spoken out about the suspicious nature of these tournaments. Someone who gathered evidence on Raef’s runs called it “blatant cheating.”
Noel, the third accused player, is backed by an entire organization called Hadouken Dojo Gaming. This group runs the largest tournaments in Bolivia, attracting players from across South America. Interestingly, almost every player at these large events is a member of Hadouken Dojo Gaming.
In several tournaments, more players represent this organization than do not. Some people allege that having so many members allows the organization to manipulate sign-up numbers and results.
For instance, at one event, Noel won the maximum 150 Dojo points. Fourteen of the top 16 players were members of Hadouken Dojo Gaming, and video recordings for the early parts of the tournament are unavailable. Only a few matches from the final stages were recorded.
While not every match can be livestreamed, the lack of footage for the lower bracket raises suspicions. Noel’s case is considered the least severe of the three, but fans are concerned about one organization controlling so much of the region. With them running events and providing most of the players, they essentially decide who qualifies from the Americas.
Unfortunately, Allidar, Raef, and Noel are all skilled Tekken players. The Tekken 8 community has been struggling with dissatisfaction over Season 2, making it difficult for organizers to fill tournaments. This issue has been discussed by analysts, with some local events losing up to 75% of their regular players overnight.
It is possible that strong players are inflating tournament numbers to make their local events appear larger. This helps them secure spots in the finals despite the low actual turnout.
Bandai Namco has not yet responded to the community’s backlash regarding these players qualifying for the Tekken World Tour Finals.
