Dominique “SonicFox” McLean
Eight EVO championships. Five different franchises. More than a decade of dominance. Meet the Delaware-raised champion who changed what greatness—and authenticity—looks like in fighting games.
From Tekken 3 to the world stage
Dominique McLean was raised in Townsend, Delaware, and has also said they are originally from New Jersey. Their older brother Christian introduced them to fighting games at age three through Tekken 3. Around age 10 or 11, Dominique entered the furry community and created the blue-and-white fox persona that inspired the name SonicFox.
At 13, online friends encouraged SonicFox to test their skills at an offline Mortal Kombat tournament. They placed ninth—but fell in love with the competitive atmosphere. By 2014, at only 16, SonicFox demolished the Injustice: Gods Among Us field at EVO and captured the first of eight titles.
Their trademark style looks wild in the moment, but SonicFox calls it “calculated randomness.”
The combination of rapid adaptation, deep character knowledge and fearless decision-making made SonicFox dangerous in almost any fighting game. They became best known for Mortal Kombat and Injustice, then proved the same skill translated to anime and tag fighters through championship runs in Dragon Ball FighterZ and Skullgirls.
Eight EVO championships
SonicFox’s 2025 victory moved them to eight EVO championships—one behind Justin Wong’s historical total of nine—and made them a back-to-back Mortal Kombat 1 champion.
The biggest moment: SonicFox vs. GO1
The career-defining spectacle came at EVO 2018. GO1 entered the Dragon Ball FighterZ Grand Final as the game’s defensive master. SonicFox forced a bracket reset, requested a move to their preferred side of the screen and completed an unforgettable comeback to win the inaugural EVO championship for the game.
Approximately 258,000 concurrent viewers watched the match on Twitch, an EVO record at the time. The side switch became one of the night’s signature images and was nominated for Best Esports Moment at The Game Awards.
A second defining moment
Months later, SonicFox won Best Esports Player at The Game Awards 2018. The honor placed a fighting-game specialist above stars from some of the largest team esports in the world and turned their acceptance speech into a statement about representation and being unapologetically yourself.
Favorites: what is actually confirmed?
Favorite game
SonicFox has not named one permanent all-time favorite. Tekken 3 was their first game, Mortal Kombat built the career, and they have spoken especially enthusiastically about Dragon Ball FighterZ.
Favorite movie
No reliable published interview was found in which SonicFox definitively names one favorite movie.
Favorite song
No reliable published interview was found in which SonicFox definitively names one favorite song. Fan captions and social clips are not confirmation.
Watch: an esports icon accepts the award
SonicFox accepts Best Esports Player at The Game Awards 2018.
More than trophies
SonicFox has used their platform to support people in and beyond the fighting-game community. In 2018, they gave $10,000 to fellow competitor Curtis “Rewind” McCall after learning that McCall’s father had cancer. In 2019, a livestream raised approximately $22,000 for The Trevor Project, which supports LGBTQ+ young people.
They also became a visible Black, queer and nonbinary champion in a scene where many players had rarely seen someone like themselves represented at the very top. SonicFox publicly uses they/them pronouns, reserving he/him for close friends.
In 2020, Skullgirls honored SonicFox with an in-game background character. In 2025, they appeared in the Martine Rose x Nike Gaming Division campaign. By 2026, the story was still growing: SonicFox won the first major Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls tournament at CEO after fighting through the losers bracket in a field of more than 1,000 entrants.