Cover-Credits:
As one of the most decorated Dota 2 players, Team Secret captain Clement "Puppey" Ivanov has shown a versatile personality in various situations throughout his long career. Azure Ray's support player Zhao "XinQ" Zixing described a humorous interaction with the player from a past event. According to XinQ, he ended a conversation between Puppey and his teammates with the word "shabi", which means retard in English. XinQ told Puppey, who was unfamiliar with the term, that it is a friendly expression. However, he learned its meaning and playfully retaliated by using the same phrase the next day. XinQ said that it made him laugh, noting that he believes he has a good relationship with Team Secret's captain.
XinQ recalls a funny story with Puppey
At the time, Puppey and Azure Ray were having a conversation in which it was revealed that the former was apologizing for supporting Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko's behavior against Azure Ray. Between the conversation. XinQ casually took a dig at Puppey with a “shabi” remark.
“Puppey is really funny. One time during this shoot, we saw Puppey and he probably said a bunch of stuff in English to our staff. Later, I think Garlic (Azure Ray’s Team Leader) said it was probably an apology. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s true or not but when he spoke to me, he said, “Hello, hello.” I said, “shabi” because he was supporting Pure’s behavior. I said shabi (retard). Then he asked me, “What does shabi mean?” I said it is what good friends say to each other. Then he didn’t say much.”
Pure and Azure Ray had a feud a few months ago. The team had raised concerns about an incident from the Bali Major 2023, which resulted in Pure's BetBoom Team being disqualified from the event. Pure had then hit out with a "?" during one of the two teams' games at The International 2023.
XinQ went on to mention that Puppey had come back the next day prepared with a response, which caused him to laugh.
“The next day when he saw me, he said he had learned some Chinese from a friend. Then I was like - what? And I walked away. But he hugged me. He’s like two meters tall and very strong. He hugged me so I couldn’t move. Then I asked him what, wondering what he wanted. He said he learned some Chinese from his Chinese friend to tell me.
Then I just froze. Because I couldn’t move, being held by him. Then he found that - he kept scrolling through his chat history, just scrolling and scrolling. Then he pointed at me and said, “Be careful next time, Shabi (retard). It made me laugh so hard, damn it…The main thing is, he’s really funny. I think I have a good relationship with him. Everytime I see him, he’s always smiling.”
This interaction might be from ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023, which took place in Dec 2023, where the two players competed with their teams. The event ended with Azure Ray winning after Puppey's Team Secret finished 7th-8th.
