About
What is CEO?
CEO started out in 2010 as a combined effort by the Fighting Game Community in Orlando and the rest of the state of Florida to salvage a canceled event. Alex Jebailey, who was assigned as tournament organizer three weeks prior to when the event was planned, named the tournament Community Effort Orlando, and proceeded to successfully manage the event for a turnout of over 350 players.
CEO's Main Objective now is to bring together fans of the fighting game
genre
and
gaming in general To Compete, Learn
and Have Fun.
You'll meet people from all over the world with the same passion as yourself which
can
make for memorable experiences.
Other Events
WRESTLING EVENT
In 2018, it was announced that New Japan Pro-Wrestling would
host an event at
the
tournament, which was held Saturday
night following the end of the day's matches. The event was named CEOxNJPW: When Worlds Collide.
Jebailey made his
wrestling debut at the event and defeated Michael Nakazawa.
In 2019, new promotion All Elite Wrestling partnered with CEO to produce Fyter Fest. Jebailey once
again wrestled
Nakazawa, this time under hardcore stipulations, but failed to win the match.
CEOTAKU
Jebailey set up a side event called CEOtaku in October 2015. A portmanteau of
CEO and
otaku, the event focused
specifically on Japanese 2D fighting games, often referred to as "anime fighters".
Such games have historically not gotten as much attention among the fighting game community.
Jebailey got the idea of
starting CEOtaku when he noticed that Florida features many anime conventions throughout any given
year, and was
inspired when he saw a side-event at Evo 2015 dubbed "ANIMEvo". CEOtaku has since become an annual
event as well.
DREAMLAND
In April 2017, Jebailey hosted CEO Dreamland, a Super Smash
Bros.-focused event
featuring tournaments for each game in
the series. The event attracted nearly 1,100 attendees, but failed to return its production cost.
Jebailey blamed the lack of attendees in comparison to his annual §CEO events on poor scheduling, as
Dreamland took
place on Easter weekend and coincided with the annual Star Wars Celebration at Walt Disney World.
Following its near $20,000 USD loss, Dreamland was originally thought to be unlikely to return, however on April 18, 2019, Jebailey confirmed that CEO Dreamland would return. CEO Dreamland 2020 was held at the Wyndham Hotel in Orlando. The tournament was won by Samsora, who donated a fraction of his earnings back to CEO after winning.
DDR STORM
Since 2016, CEO has also been the home of the Florida-based Dance Dance
Revolution tournament, DDR STORM. Once a small
side event to the larger fighting game tournaments, STORM has grown alongside the competitive DDR scene
with each
passing year, and is now regarded as one of the most prestigious DDR tournaments in the world.
2018's tournament was notable for having (at the time) the most entries for an
in-person DDR tournament in history.
STORM tournaments have also been held for related rhythm games Pump It Up and In the Groove.
