Players compete in Super Smash Bros., Street Fighter, Valorant
By Luke Thomas, April 28, 2026
Bronco Brawl returned to the campus April 18-19, inviting students to duke it out in tournaments or watch Cal Poly Pomona’s Esport teams face off against other colleges at the LAN showdowns.
For the first time in the event’s history, Bronco Brawl was split up into two days in the regular College of Business Administration with two main categories: open-entry fighting game tournaments and team-based collegiate showdowns.
The first day of Bronco Brawl was comprised of four tournaments of different Super Smash Bros. titles, opening with Crew Battles for Super Smash Bros. Melee. With a pool of eight teams of four, the tournament came down to the finalist crew’s last members, with team “We love melee” triumphing over “Fox and Mooshies.”
“We love melee” team member and University of California, San Diego alumni Khalid Serdah (Khalid) kept his success going in two other tournaments, coming first place in the Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles and second place in the Project+ Singles tournaments respectively, only losing to another member of “We love melee” who calls himself Mr. Motion, proving the team truly does love Melee.
Meanwhile in Building 163, the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament of 71 entrants concluded with mechanical engineering student Andres Aviles (Gamer Ace) winning 3-0 as Pac-Man against computer science student Christopher Gómez (Goziz) as Sonic, taking home the $75 gift card grand prize.
The remaining four fighting game tournaments began the following day, opening with the biggest tournament of the event, Tekken 8 Double Elimination with 86 entrants. Player rafraft swept 3-0 in his last three games after escaping the loser’s bracket. Meanwhile, the Street Fighter 6 tournament closed on a 3-2 match with player Ethan taking the victory over nutrition science student Victor Morales (zMetra).
“Fighting game players, as is tradition, are never on time,” said Issac G., the bracket manager for the Street Fighter tournament. “But other than that, it’s a fun time watching all of the players go by. You get to hear a lot of funny reactions, especially in pop-offs.”
Across from the Street Fighter room, UCSD alumnus Jake (Uwabami) took first place in the Guilty Gear -Strive- DE tournament in a 3-1 game. Meanwhile, the comparatively small 13 of 15 entrants competed in the 2XKO Double Elimination tournament alone upstairs, marking the new title’s second appearance at Bronco Brawl.
The team-based showdowns in the LAN room were streamed live on the Bronco Esports’ Twitch page, with the first and last being held against competing college teams.
The first showdown to occur was the Rainbow Six Siege best of three competition, pitting CPP Green against California State University, Long Beach, although a CPP player tagged in for a missing CSULB competitor. CPP Green took the win 2-0, never letting the individual game scores tie up.
The Overwatch 2 LAN showdown followed with the two CPP teams “Ride” and “Beans and Rice” facing off against each other. “Beans and Rice” dominated the competition, taking the win 3-0.
To close out the second day of Bronco Brawl, the CPP Black Valorant team faced off against San José State University’s Gold team in a best of five games competition. Despite a sweeping loss in the third match, CPP Black managed to prevent SJSU Gold from gaining the next match, scoring 13-10, setting the overall score to 3-1 and closing the competition over three hours after the first match began.
“It gets difficult at times in terms of doing our best to win because we are going up against a bunch of college teams who also have that competitive drive to play and win against us,” said Justin Chong, a mechanical engineering student and member of the CPP Black team.
The CPP Rhythm Game Community hosted a free play arcade down the hall from the LAN room, with club members bringing their large setups for a variety of popular arcade titles, including Sound Voltex and Taiko no Tatsujin. The club also held two smaller tournaments for PC rhythm games osu! and Arcaeda, occurring Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Also returning was the Neo Anime Club’s Maid Café, who gave out Porto’s desserts, iced tea and held faux idol performances free of charge.
Benjamin Vuu, a CPP alumnus and founder of the CPP Rhythm Game Community who was helping run the free play arcade, described how founding the club allowed him to figure things out when he had just switched majors, a pivotal point in his life.
“It was new territory for me,” Vuu said. “I didn’t know what I was doing. But the one thing I had was that I love rhythm games. I had contacts with people on the Esports club, and they needed someone to run a more casual experience. It was through running this and knowing my local community where I learned that I really enjoy what I do here: the event planning and being able to provide a space for the people I care about. Now, I currently work in the industry, so in a way, rhythm games kind of saved me.”
For announcements on future Bronco Brawls or other campus Esports events, students can check out the Bronco Esports’ Instagram page or join the club’s Discord server.
Feature image courtesy of Luke Thomas
