Juan Debiedma

Juan Manuel Debiedma (born June 21, 1993), also known as Hungrybox shortened HBox, is a full-time Argentinian American professional Super Smash Bros. Melee eSports player from Orlando, Florida who uses Jigglypuff. He is widely regarded to be the best Jigglypuff main in the world. He is the champion of Apex 2010 and finished runner up in 2012. He also earned 3rd, 2nd, and 2nd at EVO 2013, 2014, and 2015 respectively, and has been crowned the EVO SSBM World Champion in 2016. He is widely regarded as one of the "Five Gods" of Melee along with Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Joseph "Mango" Marquez, Adam "Armada" Lindgren, and Kevin "PPMD" Nanney.^[1][2][3] Debiedma also plays Project M and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and mains Jigglypuff in the former and Ness in the latter.^[4][5]

Debiedma currently holds the title of largest prize check in a Melee tournament with a total of $14,232 USD earned at EVO 2016. This surpassed the previous record of $13,000 at Battle of the Five Gods,^[6] which was also held by Hungrybox. Debiedma also holds the title of second largest prize check in an overall Smash tournament with his EVO 2016 winnings, second only to Elliot "Ally" Carroza-Oyarce's $15,972 check for EVO 2016 Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Singles.

Career

Hungrybox says that he "got good using gimmicks" and that his hands are not fast enough for technical skill.^[7] In 2009, Debiedma placed 3rd at GENESIS 1, his first high placement at a national tournament. He won his first tournament at Revival of Melee 2 later that year. Hungrybox continued to make deep runs in tournaments often finishing 2nd to 5th. In 2014, he placed top three in nine Melee tournaments, including a victory at Fight Pitt V^[8] and runner up at EVO 2014.^[2] Debiedma believes that he gained more respect in recent years for playing a character once considered gimmicky.^[9][10] In 2015, Debiedma won his first national victory for the year at Paragon after handily defeating Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman in grand finals.^[11]

On July 3, 2013, Debiedma was picked up by CLASH Tournaments alongside Aziz "Hax" Al-Yami.^[12] On April 17, 2014, Debiedma left CLASH Tournaments and joined Team Curse.^[13] On January 6, 2015 Team Curse announced that they would be merging with Team Liquid. Because of the merge, Debiedma was picked up by Team Liquid along with his teammate Kashan "Chillin" Khan, joining Ken and KoreanDJ.^[14]

On Reddit, Super Smash Bros. Melee player Joseph "Mango" Marquez and Debiedma were involved in a feud in a Ask Me Anything that Mango did in June 2013.^[15] Debiedma says that Marquez, despite being the best player in the world, is very immature and said that Marquez somehow turned the whole Smash community against him. In the end, Hungrybox says that he just wants some respect from Mango. Marquez replied that while he does have respect for Debiedma outside of the Smash community, he has no respect for him when playing the game. He says "I think [you're] and i think [you're] god awful. You learn 1 gimmick and abused it .. You never adapt to anything .. [You're] just bad at the game and if you wanna shut me up. Beat me consistently dude and it will change.^[16]

In 2015, Debiedma played a 1v1 game of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U against Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime during the 2015 Nintendo World Championships. The two had agreed to an exhibition match the previous year during the Super Smash Bros. Invitational at E3 2014. Debiedma used Jigglypuff while Reggie used Ryu from Street Fighter. Debiedma won the match nearly effortlessly.

In August 2015 Debiedma announced that he would be becoming less active in competitive Smash as he began his career as an engineer.^[17] Paragon Los Angeles was his next tournament after EVO. He finished 3rd in Melee after being eliminated by Mew2King by a score of 3-2.^[18] In the largest Project M tournament in history, Hbox finished 4th, also after being defeated by Mew2King, losing 3-1. In October, HBox won the MLG World Finals Melee singles tournament after beating Mew2King in grand finals 3-1 to win the tournament. In November HBox won Dreamhack Winter 2015 Melee singles beating Armada 3-1 in the second set of grand finals after losing 3-0 in the first set of grand finals, and won doubles with Axe, beating Shroomed and MacD 3-1 in grand finals.

On July 17, 2016, Debiedma became the Super Smash Bros. Melee EVO 2016 Champion, beating Armada in the grand finals. Debiedma was sent to the losers bracket after losing Winner's Semifinals to Justin "Plup" McGrath, but was able to work his way back up to Grand Finals against Armada after eliminating S2J, Mango, and Plup. Finals consisted of Armada playing Fox and Hungrybox playing Jigglypuff. He won two consecutive best of five sets against Armada, both sets with a score of 3-2.

Personal life

Debiedma was born in Argentina on June 21, 1993.^[19] Debiedma is a 2011 graduate of Freedom High School in Orlando and is a 2015 graduate at the University of Florida with a major in chemical engineering.^[3][20] In 2015 he began working as a process engineer for WestRock.^[17] In 2016, after underperforming at The Big House 6, Debiedma quit his job at WestRock to pursue a full-time eSports career. ^[21]

In an interview after winning DreamHack Winter 2015, Hungrybox revealed that his biological father had died.^[22]

Hungrybox appeared as a guest of Anthony Fantano on the January 9, 2016 episode of the The Needle Drop podcast.^[23] Fantano had previously appeared on Hungrybox's twitch.tv stream.

Notable tournament placings

Super Smash Bros Melee

Project M

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS

References

External links

• Juan Debiedma on Twitter