Bandai Namco recently held a Tekken 8 tournament in Bangkok, Thailand. This event, Thaiger Uppercut 2024, was a leg of the Tekken World Tour and despite a strong start from the player Chen "XCC" Ruolin, his tournament would end in disaster as officials disqualified him before Top 8 for a peculiar reason.
Ruolin wasn't cheating or anything like that - he was disqualified because his country of origin is China, which isn't one of the 189 countries recognised by the rule book of the Tekken World Tour. This is especially surprising because the list of countries is so extensive that some of the smallest territories on Earth like Monaco, Tuvalu and Nauru are included but the second-most populous country in the world China, isn't. It's noteworthy that Taiwan and Hong Kong, territories which China claims dominion over, are included.
Bandai Namco has not provided an official reason as to why China isn't an eligible country, but this non-inclusion ultimately cost Ruolin his tournament run. The Chinese player and Dragunov main had been undefeated up until the point he was disqualified. It's also strange that Ruolin was allowed to play for hours before getting disqualified, as he clearly stated his...
