Jukeyz on His Journey to WSOW Global Finals, Training with Red Bull and More
You recently trained at the Red Bull Athletic Performance Center, what was that experience like?
“I feel so much more focused on the tournament and I feel more awake than normal. Salzburg is a beautiful place and being at the APC with the people there, the other athletes who were inspiring me every day to wanna get healthier, get fitter, eat the right things.
I was eating so good down there. I was eating so healthy, drinking the best water as well. There's a Red Bull water from the rivers in Austria and it's unbelievable.
The whole trip as a whole though was sick to be honest. The doctors that helped me, the people in the gym, I feel like they unleashed a part of me that I didn't really know existed, I’m so focused and so calm and awake.”
They mainly train traditional sports athletes at the APC. Do you think gamers have anything that traditional athletes might not have or could improve on?
“When I'm sitting on this table full of Red Bull athletes and like, I'm just looking at them, they're all ripped. They look amazing. The way they talk, everything about them. They're just, the dream athletes, you know what I'm saying?
And I'm sitting there like, I'm just looking at my belly and I want to be like them. But then once we get talking, they're asking me what I do or so some of them may know what I do. They're even more intrigued about what I'm doing than I am about them.
So I'm thinking like, there must be, there must be something. I can't sit here and point out what they can't do in gaming that I can. But I bet you if you ask them, what are the things that Liam can do that they just can't do? I think they'd be able to say better.
So I don't know. It's a hard one. But I bet if you ask them, they'd be able to answer that.”
How confident are you heading into the WSOW Global Finals?
“I'm feeling confident. We just had a practice tournament last night. We didn't win, but we had the most kills.
To see my team still have the most kills in a lobby with the same teams we’ll play this weekend was a big positive to take away. We know where to improve our game in four days. I'm not doubting myself because I always play well in the big tournaments, but I do sit there and think sometimes, it's mad to play against the best players in the world who I know very well.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull
For the next couple of days, I'm going to be playing on a 1080p monitor. Normally I play on 1440p. I've been on 1440 for like a year and a half but at the event they're on 1080 so that's quite smaller. So for me to be ready and to get even more prepared, I've changed my monitor to their monitors. And yeah, I'm just putting in the time. That's all I can do. Just learn the game, keep smoking players, just keep on building that confidence. Hopefully, on the day I just turn up, well, me and my team turn up, to be honest.”
I know you went to the last COD event in the Copperbox in 2020 as a fan. How does it feel to return but this time to be playing on mainstage?
“It's a bit different from the last time I went. Last time I went I slept on the floor in my mate's hotel room. I was, I was broke. I had no money. The ticket I got for the event was a birthday present off my mum. And the train was paid for by my nan as a birthday present. I think I went down there with about £30 or something for the two days.
It's going to be a lot different now. You know what I'm saying? I've got Call of Duty paying for my hotel. They’re getting me down there two days earlier. They're paying for breakfast, food and stuff like that. If I need anything from Red Bull, they've always got me as well.
It's crazy for me to say because you know, I've played this game from when I was a kid and now to be able to get sent down to London and everything paid for to play a big tournament on home soil is gonna be mad.
I try not to think about it. I try not to think about the crowd too much or what it's going to be like. My main focus is to just win. I've got a kid now and I can't get caught up with all the stuff that's going on around what's really important, which is winning and trying to get the most money I can for me and the baby.”
It’s been a wild three years for you since Warzone launched. Can you talk me through those years and how everything has changed for you?
“Wow. Honestly, so much has happened. So much has happened. I wake up every day feeling blessed. I go to bed feeling blessed. I came from literally having nothing in the bank.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull
I was working in a warehouse earning £240 a week and I couldn't, I could never get into the mindset of like, okay, this is, this is my life and this is how it's going to be.
I never wanted it to be like that. But when I won my first tournament and I had that big lump of cash, the first thing I wanted to do was to help my family, because obviously we had a mortgage to pay and stuff like that, bills to pay. My mum's disabled, she's never worked. So the first thing I wanted to do was help because I always felt like I couldn't help them because I couldn't even help myself. I was just in a cycle of going out to different jobs because I couldn't really get my head into that. ‘This is, this is my life and this is what I have to do.’
I know with the stress that the mortgage brought to my family, you know, paying that off every month. My dad lost his job a few years ago. I remember he collapsed, he was having panic attacks because he got made redundant and he didn't know how to pay the mortgage and stuff like that.
So a few years down the line when I had the opportunity, I paid off the mortgage.”
