PUBG player claims games helped him fend off samurai sword attack by girlfriend

Photo credit: Alex Lovell Facebook (via Buzzfeed)

Avid PUBG player Alex Lovell says his devotion to videogames and martial arts movies, coupled with extensive wing chun training, enabled him to fend off a near-fatal attack by his girlfriend of two years, Emily Javier, who assaulted him with a samurai sword while he was asleep.

Javier apparently believed that Lovell was cheating on her, but he told Buzzfeed that all that gaming had simply destroyed his libido.

"It killed my sex drive. I was training too hard, it exhausted me," Lovell said. "I felt bad because she needed the affection. I just couldn't keep up."

It wasn't just Lovell's inability to perform that stirred Javier's wrath, however. She found red hair in his shower drain—her hair is dyed green—and discovered that he had Tinder installed on his phone. She also apparently found scratches on his back.

Instead of simply leaving him, however, she opted to purchase a samurai sword, which she taped to her side of the bed, along with two knives. On the night of March 2, after Lovell went to sleep, she hid his phone so he couldn't call for help and then launched her assault.

But as Lovell explained to OregonLive, he "wasn't a sweaty nerd, more of an Ethlete"—as such, his training regimen included exercises for his hands, wrists, and shoulders, practicing special moves and techniques with his mouse, and playing PUBG for 12-13 hours per day, all of which left him ready to handle the onslaught.

"I've been preparing my whole life for something like this," he said.

After being awoken by the attack, Lovell said he was "able to wing chun [his] way to survival," and was eventually able to get his (presumably at that point ex-) girlfriend into a bearhug. She got hold of the family jewels and "tried to rip them off," but even then Lovell was able to keep his cool.

"I saw the look in her eyes, and it scared the living poop out of me," he said. "I told her I loved her, and she was killing me. She needed to call police, or I was going to die."

And in fact she did relent and call 911, which probably saved Lovell's life: Three of his fingers were nearly severed at the base, he had deep lacerations on his feet and legs, and various other wounds to his torso, neck, and head. The OregonLive report says it could be six months before he's able to walk again, and he'll require extensive therapy to regain the full use of his hands.

In spite of the trauma, Lovell seems jubilant. "The feeling I had when I won the fight with my bare hands is just absolutely the best feeling," he said. "I've played all the sports, won big games, landed some decent tricks on my snowboard. This was better."

Emily Javier remains in custody and is facing attempted murder charges. A GoFundMe campaign to help Lovell deal with the costs of his recovery has raised more than $8000 in less than two weeks.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.