TrentPax calls out AdmiralBulldog for latest racial joke

Henrik “AdmiralBulldog” Ahnberg and Trent “TrentPax” MacKenzie are publicly butting heads.

The former Alliance offlaner was put on blast by the caster over his latest racially charged joke. Bulldog cracked wise about the name of Dota 2 team Nigma, seemingly alluding to its similarities to a racial slur.

That resulted in a call-out from Trentpax during the latest edition of MoonDuck’s Trent & Zyori Podcast.

“We just had [the MDL Chengdu Major] and every time [Dota 2 hero] Enigma was mentioned, it was just Trihard and CmonBruh,” a reference to emojis that are typically spammed on Twitch any time a black person appears during a broadcast. “Bulldog, ‘a big Nigma fan here,’ Jesus Christ, that guy is the lowest dredger of the fucking low dredge. Stop encouraging your shitty-ass viewers with that dumbass bullshit.”

AdmiralBulldog responded to the call-out on Twitter.

“I wrote ‘Big Nigma fan here’ to mock ex-[Team Liquid] for their terrible branding decision, not to bait racism,” he said. “I’m all for people having different opinions but why did you have to throw in all those personal insults Trent!”

The two went back and forth from there, but it was an exchange that did little more than highlight and reinforce Bulldog’s unfortunate history with racist humor.

AdmiralBulldog’s history with racist language, jokes

Dota 2 has an unfortunately lengthy history of racism by influential figures at all levels. Racial pejoratives are common among all esports titles, but using outright racist language is pervasive throughout the Dota 2 esports scene.

While the highest profile example of this is Carlo “Kuku” Palad making a racial quip about Chinese teammates during a pub game, players like Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang and casters like Toby “TobiWan” Dawson have said blatantly racist things in public forums in the past. Many others have used racial pejoratives during games that weren’t broadcasted, but have been preserved through text logs or other means.

AdmiralBulldog has not yet been at the center of any major controversy, but not for lack of trying.

Now a streamer, he regularly makes allusions to racist stereotypes and imagery. Both during the podcast and on Twitter, TrentPax discussed multiple instances where he made racist jokes, particularly related to equating black people with monkeys.

While others came to Bulldog’s defense, he ultimately proved TrentPax right in the eyes of some when fewer than 24 hours later by running a stream named “Ronnie Coleman, Here I Come.” The famed bodybuilder has become a meme within Bulldog’s community, stemming from a 2016 game where he repeatedly preyed upon a player named for him and eventually dropped racial epithets during the broadcast.