In Call of Duty: Warzone, many professional tournaments take place via “Twitch Rivals”. There are often generous prize pools distributed – up to $300,000 for the winners. However, Warzone pro Zack “ZLaner” Lane was banned shortly before the last tournament, which could be due to his “similarity” to Dr Disrespect.
What’s it about?
- The streamer ZLaner received a message from Twitch shortly before the start of a Warzone tournament from Twitch Rivals stating that he was not allowed to participate.
- ZLaner usually streams on Facebook, but was allowed to participate in the last North America edition of the Warzone tournament in June.
- He streamed for about an hour of the tournament in a “Dr Disrespect” cosplay. It is suspected that this led to his ban. The ban has since been lifted.
Twitch has been writing its own exciting media history for years. However, it seems that the streaming platform wants to erase a footnote from this history entirely – the years-long liaison with the insane character “Dr Disrespect”.
The man behind the character, Guy Beahm, originally received an exclusive contract with Twitch and was only banned permanently under mysterious circumstances just two months later. The ban is now over a year old – the reasons remain unclear.
The circumstances suggest that it was not trivial for Twitch, but rather a really big deal: The Doc is not even allowed near a Twitch stream.
What does ZLaner have to do with it? The streamer had his breakthrough in 2020. He moved from Fortnite to Warzone and then mainly created CoD content. He steadily grew and had a prominent partner: Dr Disrespect. The two make a great team: The Doc introduced ZLaner to a wide audience, and ZLaner provided strong gameplay footage for the Doc with his skills.
You could certainly call the two friends or at least good colleagues. This was also the reason why ZLaner showcased a “cosplay” of Dr Disrespect during the “Call of Duty World Series of Warzone” as part of Twitch Rivals in June 2021.
While other streamers avoid any hints towards the Doc on Twitch, ZLaner goes all out. During one of the biggest Warzone tournaments, he not only shows a cosplay on Twitch but also imitates the Doc and says things like “no matter what platform, we’re going to have a phenomenal day”:
As a Facebook streamer, ZLaner is probably a bit bolder than his colleagues on Twitch. He doesn’t fear a ban or the like as much – his career would continue on Facebook. However, with a ban at Twitch Rivals, the streamer would lose access to some of the biggest prize pools in Warzone and to rich hunting grounds for new followers on his main channel.
Commentators of the ban therefore consider it possible that the reason for the spontaneous exclusion was the cosplay appearance (via Twitter). The ban has since been lifted, and ZLaner is allowed to participate in upcoming Twitch Rivals tournaments again.
Was it really due to the cosplay? It cannot be said for sure – Twitch says no. But as always, Twitch remains rather reserved with information regarding the ban. ZLaner shared the following tweet about the situation:
The streamer was forwarded a message from Twitch, which only states: “ZLaner is not eligible to participate in Twitch Rivals today.” He posted a photo from the cosplay stream and fueled the discussion about the ban.
As the situation slowly heats up, Twitch speaks up. According to Twitch, the ban on ZLaner was a mistake. An employee of Twitch, Blake “CloudFuel” Tull (Esports Community Manager), commented on the matter on Twitter.
Tull explained roughly why ZLaner was not allowed to participate. But he also stated that the specific reasons for the ban were not public. Almost a day later, Tull commented again under one of the discussion tweets and clarified:
“ZLaner should actually NOT have been banned for yesterday’s event. He is eligible to participate in upcoming Twitch Rivals events.”
Whether it was an unfortunate coincidence or not. The timing was right, and Twitch must face accusations again of proceeding with bans in a manner lacking transparency and capriciousness. You can find more on that here: 6 bans on Twitch that were heavily discussed in 2020.
