Juan DeBiedma

Juan Manuel DeBiedma (; born June 21, 1993), better known by his alias Hungrybox, is an Argentine–American professional Super Smash Bros. player, streamer, tournament organizer and commentator. Recognized as one of the greatest and most successful Super Smash Bros. Melee players of all time, he is considered one of the historical "Five Gods of Melee" along with Adam "Armada" Lindgren, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Joseph "Mang0" Marquez, and Kevin "PPMD" Nanney, and is regarded as the greatest Jigglypuff player in history. He is also an active competitor in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and has been a member of Team Liquid since 2015, becoming its co-owner in December 2021. He is currently ranked as the 3rd best Melee player in the world for 2025.

DeBiedma has won over forty major Melee Singles tournaments between 2009 and 2025, including editions of Apex, The Big House, CEO, DreamHack, EVO, GENESIS, the MLG National Championship, and Smash Summit. He has been ranked one of the top ten Melee players in the world every year since formal rankings began in 2013, achieving the top rank a record three consecutive times from 2017 to 2019; retroactive rankings establish him as a top ten player in the world every year since 2009, and rank him number one for 2010. A 2021 list compiled by PGstats ranked DeBiedma as the third-greatest Melee player of all time after Mang0 and Armada. Despite his "God" status, he is considered one of the most polarizing figures in the Melee community, in part due to the unpopularity of his defensive, counterattack-centric playstyle among part of the community.

Born in Argentina, DeBiedma grew up in Orlando, Florida, and became a U.S. citizen in 2017. DeBiedma has also competed in Super Smash Bros. games subsequent to Melee, and won both Project M and Ultimate tournaments. Although primarily known as a Singles player, he also has an extensive career in Melee Doubles, and partnered up with a variety of other players, most notably Mew2King and Justin "Plup" McGrath, both of whom he won major Doubles tournaments with; he has been managed by his lifelong best friend Luis "Crunch" Rosias for the entirety of his career. He also regularly acts as commentator, and is the creator of the mostly-online The Box series of Super Smash Bros. tournaments created in 2020, which include Coinbox, the largest online Ultimate tournament series.

Early life Juan Manuel DeBiedma was born in Argentina on June 21, 1993, to Juan Daniel Debiedma, a diplomat for Argentina, and Lucia Violante, a flight attendant. In the mid-1990s, DeBiedma's family moved to Orlando, Florida, after which Violante became a real estate agent.

In 2009 at a local Tampa tournament, Twilight Showdown 6, he placed 3rd for the first time in any tournament, earning $27.50, his first prize money; he recognizes this as the first moment he considered becoming professional. The event is considered the full beginning of the "Era of the Five Gods" (or "Platinum" Era), which marked a surge in prominence and popularity for the Melee competitive scene, and its near-total domination by five players: DeBiedma, Adam "Armada" Lindgren, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Joseph "Mango" Marquez, and Kevin "PPMD" Nanney, with every Melee tournament ranked Supermajor (the highest rating for a Smash tournament) or Major (the second-highest) for several consecutive years being won by one of the "Gods", and them rarely losing to anyone but another "God". At Evo 2013, DeBiedma finished in 3rd place, losing to Wobblez in the losers finals after a controversial finish; in parallel, he took part in a Melee Doubles Evo side-event, teaming up with Mew2King to win the tournament. On April 17 of the following year, he left CLASH Tournaments and joined Team Curse. On January 6, 2015, Team Curse merged with Team Liquid, leading DeBiedma to be picked up by Team Liquid along with his teammate Kashan "Chillin" Khan, joining other Smash Bros. players Ken Hoang and Daniel "KoreanDJ" Jung.

In 2014, DeBiedma placed top three in nine Melee tournaments, including a victory at Fight Pitt V. At Evo 2014, he reached the Grand Finals for the first time, losing to Mango and finishing in 2nd place; he once again won the Doubles side-event, this time teaming up with Justin "Plup" McGrath.

In 2015, DeBiedma won the Melee Singles tournament at Paragon, defeating Mew2King in the Grand Finals. At Evo 2015 in July, he finished in 2nd place, losing to Armada in the Grand Finals; the following month, he announced that he would be becoming less active in competitive Smash, as he began his career as an engineer. In parallel to his Melee career, he competed on the newly released Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U to little success; at Paragon Los Angeles in 2015, the largest Project M tournament in history, DeBiedma finished 4th after being defeated by Mew2King 3–1.

The following October, DeBiedma competed at The Big House 6, where he placed 5th, losing to Armada in the losers quarter-finals; although he had been juggling his entire e-sports career with full studies and/or working, DeBiedma, disappointed by his performance, decided to quit his job as process engineer for WestRock to become a full-time professional player for the first time.

Domination of Melee (2017–2020)

In 2017, DeBiedma won multiple tournaments, including the Supermajor tournament The Big House 7, and four Super Major tournaments: Shine 2017, DreamHack Austin 2017, DreamHack Denver 2017, and Smash Summit 5; for the latter, he set a new record for most money won in a single Melee tournament, receiving $29,315.30 as prize money.

In 2018, DeBiedma continued to consistently rank high on tournaments, winning a total of 18, including three Supermajors: Shine 2017, CEO 2018, and The Big House 8. At Evo 2018, DeBiedma lost to Armada in the losers semifinals and ranked 4th. DeBiedma would go on to score five consecutive tournaments wins at the end of the year, including the Singles tournament at Smash Summit 7 on November 15.

In February 2019, DeBiedma won GENESIS 6, his first GENESIS win after participating in all five previous editions of the Singles Melee tournament. He went on to win more Majors, including Pound 2019, Low Tier City 7, CEO 2019, Shine 2019, and Mainstage. At GENESIS 6, the biggest Ultimate tournament at that point with 2105 entrants, DeBiedma placed 193rd in Singles, and 257th in Doubles with Kashan "Chillindude" Khan. His best Ultimate ranking for 2019 was at Mango's Birthday Bash, where he finished in 7th place; in addition, he performed as a Melee player, finishing 2nd in both singles and Doubles tournaments (teaming up with Zain for the latter).

COVID-19 and Ultimate (2020–2021) DeBiedma won GatorLAN Spring 2020, before finishing 2nd at GENESIS 7 after losing to Zain in the Singles Grand Finals, while teaming up with him to rank 5th in Doubles. He went on to win Smash Summit 9 in February.

He won his first Ultimate tournament by finishing 1st in The Salad Online 13's Ultimate Singles bracket.

Starting in March 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic caused the Smash community to either cancel events or move them online. Due to Melee not having an online mode, the Melee community became de facto inactive, apart from tournaments using a fan-made online mod of Melee. DeBiedma failed to win any for the rest of the year. He achieved his worst Melee placement in 13 years in July at LACS 2, finishing 13th. He and Plup also took 2nd place in a special single-elimination doubles tournament where players could only pick each character once per set, losing to Mang0 and SFAT in the finals.

At Riptide on September 10–12, 2021, DeBiedma took third place in the singles tournament after losing to iBDW in Winners Finals and to Plup in losers finals. He and Plup also won the doubles tournament. DeBiedma and four of his fellow Team Liquid members became co-owners of the team in December.

On July 3, 2022, DeBiedma won Get On My Level 2022 in Canada, marking his first Singles major won in two and a half years since his last major win at Smash Summit 9 in February 2020; he would later score his second major win of that year at Riptide in September in the United States. He would ultimately be ranked 5th in the world for Melee in 2022 (the first official yearly rankings since 2019's due to COVID-2019), officially losing his rank as top player in the world and receiving his lowest Melee ranking since 2014. OrionRank (a group with rankings larger than UltRank, the main ranking entity for Ultimate, which is limited to 100 players) also ranked him the 199th Ultimate player in North America for 2022.

On February 16, 2025, DeBiedma won the eleventh installment of annual tournament GENESIS, which is seen as "one of the most prestigious international tournaments in the fighting game scene." This was his first time winning a major since Riptide 2022.

Style and public image Playstyle Largely credited with elevating the Melee community's perception of Jigglypuff's viability in competition and setting the standard of how to play the character, DeBiedma relies heavily on a defensive, counterattack-centric playstyle revolving around avoiding his opponent until he finds an opportunity to attack and capitalize on their mistakes; it is considered a "high-risk high-reward" playstyle, as DeBiedma's usual goal is to eventually hit his opponent with "Rest", a move unique to Jigglypuff which inflicts abnormally high knockback on opponents and is able to take the opponent's stock at much lower damage percentages than other moves of its responsiveness. The move has a very small range, making it hard to land without setting up a combo that finishes with it and, regardless of whether it successfully hits or not, it leaves Jigglypuff asleep and completely vulnerable to enemy attack for three seconds afterwards; as such, failure to hit the opponent via "Rest" can result in drawbacks such as massive damage inflicted on Jigglypuff via combos or, if damage is already high, in an instant kill, since Jigglypuff is the second lightest character in the game and is prone to losing stocks quickly as a result. Even if the move is successful and takes a stock, Jigglypuff might not wake up fast enough to avoid getting attacked and potentially killed in return upon her foe respawning, leaving DeBiedma little room for mistakes during a game. Liking Melee for its "unorthodox value", he claimed in 2014 that he disliked traditional head-to-head fighting games. However, he has remained a polarizing figure for Melee fans and players all throughout his career, with part of the community criticizing his playstyle as annoying and too slow and Jigglypuff as an unpleasing character to watch; he has also been accused of hurting the community, with some alleging that his playstyle was driving viewers away. Bleeding Cool reported the event with the headline "DreamHack Austin Champion Wins In The Most Pathetic Way Possible".

Controversial tournament events DeBiedma's match against Zac "SFAT" Cordoni in the losers semifinals at Evo 2017 attracted controversy after DeBiedma called his coach, Luis "Crunch" Rosias, over for advice in between games, which was as a violation of the event's "No Coaching After Pools" rule; as the discussion between DeBiedma and Crunch was ongoing, Gordon "G$" Connell, a friend of SFAT, approached and mocked the other two by mimicking a coach-like discussion with SFAT. As the result, Evo considered that both players had violated the rule, and let the match's original result, a win for DeBiedma, stand; both players nevertheless received a yellow card as punishment for their actions. This upset part of the fans, who believed that, as SFAT was not actually being coached, he should have won by disqualification. Others pointed out that, according to the official Evo ruleset, if such an incident is not reported at the time it took place, then it is ignored, and that, as neither DeBiedma nor SFAT reported the other, neither should have been carded in the first place. DeBiedma eventually lost the following round, the losers finals, against Mango, finishing 3rd in the tournament while SFAT placed 4th as the result of his loss. The crab incident became viral and was relayed by a variety of media outlets, quickly becoming a meme within the Smash community.

On August 15, 2017, DeBiedma became a U.S. citizen.

Awards and nominations

Media DeBiedma's early Melee career was documented in an episode of the 2013 documentary series The Smash Brothers. He also is present in another documentary about the competitive Smash scene called Metagame. DeBiedma has been a vocal advocate for the competitive Super Smash Bros. scene, praising the technological advancements created for Melee, and criticizing Nintendo for their lack of support towards the community. On January 26, 2020, YouTuber EmpLemon uploaded a video entitled "there will Never Ever be another Melee player like HungryBox" detailing key moments in DeBiedma's career and his impact on the Melee community. The video has since garnered over 10 million views, the most popular on EmpLemon's channel.