Despite his apparent defeat and resignation last month, it appears the Dark Lord Alex Strife may have returned to exert control over Apex, the largest Super Smash Brothers Melee and Smash 4 tournaments in history.

While many Smash players and fans rallied against him on Reddit and Twitter, Strife is confident that he can influence and manage the Apex tournament series privately without the public’s knowledge or consent, as he has many years of experience secretly controlling and suppressing people within the Smash community.

“Honestly, resigning from Apex was kind of awesome for me, I still own the brand and get paid lots of money while other TOs did all the work,” said Alex Strife, gesturing lazily at a nearby henchman who repeatedly struck a bound-and-gagged local TO with a bat labeled Apex Qualifier.

Strife added, “Unfortunately, since I didn’t go to Apex, it’s been nearly a month since I was able to freely harass transgender women.”

When he is not sending inappropriate chat messages to minors, Strife stated that he enjoys playing Super Smash Brothers Melee, often spending hours shooting lasers in training mode against defenseless level 1 Sheik CPUs.

“Please continue to support Apex but don’t ask questions about who truly owns and operates it,” said Strife, whose name may still be on the Apex’s sponsor contracts as well as several restraining orders.

“I am the perfect representative for the Smash community to sponsors, organizations like Twitch and Nintendo, and the general public.”