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In a shocking moment at the BetBoom Dacha 2024 Dubai that followed Team Liquid’s series loss against Gaimin Gladiators, Team Liquid’s offlaner Neta "33" Shapira refused to shake hands with Gaimin Gladiators players. This left the Dota 2 community puzzled and fans are scratching their heads thinking about the reason behind this bizarre behavior. However, Gaimin Gladiators’ mid-laner Quinn "Quinn" Callah came to 33’s defense on X (formerly Twitter) and made a statement to clear any speculations of any beef between 33 and himself.
33’s Refusal For a Post-Game Handshake Leaves Everyone Confused
On 4th February, the biggest rivals of 2023, Team Liquid and Gaimin Gladiators, went head to head in a best-of-two series at the BetBoom Dacha 2024 Dubai. However, Gaimin Gladiators snowballed in both of the games and won the series with relative ease much to Team Liquid’s disappointment. Following the conclusion of the series, the Gaimin Gladiators players entered Team Liquid’s booth for a customary post-game handshake in a show of respect to their opponents. Shockingly, 33 refused to shake hands with any of the Gaimin Gladiators’ players.
As of now, it is still not clear why 33 refused to shake his opponents’ hands. It could have been due to the disappointing loss faced by Liquid or he could have been sick or it could be some other reasons unknown to the general public. While there are only speculations about why 33 refused to shake hands with his opponents, neither 33 nor Team Liquid have commented on this matter.
However, Quinn took to Twitter to clear the air of speculations of any beef between himself and 33. He wrote, “Yo, you goobers, it's some clowntown bo2 (best of 2). People don’t gotta shake hands, this c**p doesn't matter and there's no beef. Me and Neta are homies. Losing just sucks and it feels Giga weird to have to go do it after a bo2 das all.”
Also commenting on the issue was Team Liquid coach William "Blitz" Lee. He jokingly tweeted, "People making drama out of the 33 situation, really is no issue, we simply just hate Quinn."
The reasons behind the handshake refusal remain up for debate or maybe it’s just like what Quinn said, “it feels giga weird to have to go do it after a bo2.” In an attempt to get to the bottom of it, Dota 2 streamer Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski even tried to read 33’s lips during his stream. However, he could not understand what 33 muttered.
It should be noted that Team Liquid players often joke about hating on Gaimin Gladiators. Samuel "Boxi" Svahn, during 33’s announcement stream, said, “Anyways, the first step of joining Team Liquid is hating Gaimin Gladiators.”
