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Former Pokemon VGC World Champion Wolfe ‘WolfeyVGC’ Glick has revealed that he will be stepping back from competing in-person due to being groped by fans at events.
Glick, who has over 2 million subscribers on YouTube, summited the Pokemon Video Game Championship mountain back in 2016 to become World Champion. He has won numerous events, but is stepping back from in-person competition after being constantly groped by fans at events.
“Over the past several years, attending tournaments has been getting more and more difficult. Worlds this year was a turning point, and a peak, and it made it clear to me that something had to change,” he said on October 23.
“I competed at seven official tournaments in the 2025 season, from September 2024 to August 2025, I attended seven in-person tournaments. At five of those tournaments, I was groped. Fans, when taking pictures with me, put their hands on me sexually and non-consensually during the act of taking photos.
“I don’t like that this is happening, and it’s pretty clear to most people that this is not normal people. Most people do not grope other people, and I don’t know why it’s happening to me in particular, but the fact remains that it is.”
WolfeyVGC reveals stress from competing at Pokemon events
Glick noted that the inappropriate touching isn’t the only reason for his step back. He also cited a neck injury, as well as raised levels of stress and anxiety from being at events. This, he notes, it has made events “less fun” to attend.
“In general, I consider myself to be a low stress and low anxiety person; in fact, the only place where I feel any stress and anxiety is at a Pokemon tournament,” he continued. “Because that stress and anxiety when competing can be so intense, it makes all other stress, anxiety, and pressure feel like nothingburgers in comparison.
“After getting home from a tournament, it takes me about a week before I go back to feeling normal. It takes me about a week before I can go outside my house without having my heart rate spike and without feeling pretty intense anxiety.”
The Pokemon CompanyThe former World Champion will not be attending any in-person event for the next four months, including the international championships, the US regional championships, and the Toronto regionals.
“This is a time where I would rather take a break now, while I still have a choice, than be forced to take a break later,” he said.
Even if he were to qualify for the next World Championships, Wolfey said he would not attend because of the bad experiences around events from the previous season. However, he has not completely retired and praised his competitors.
