Is this proof that Guzma was actually abused by his parents?

I dunno why folks assumed that he was abused by his parents? Sometimes I feel like the fandom just likes to add dark and edgy subject matter into the franchise for no reason. :/

In Guzma's old house, we see a duffel bag full of "broken and bent" golf clubs. His father also says this:

> "It's good for kids to experience their own journeys, but running away without even word to your parents is another thing entirely. I tried to set that boy of mine straight, but when I did, I was the one who got beat..."

(This is the line that includes the phrase "got beat black and blue" in Japanese, but like I said, from my research into the subject, I've been lead to believe that the phrase is being used idiomatically.)

Some people read this as the dad saying that he intended to use corporal punishment in order to discipline Guzma for running away, until Guzma turned the tables and "beat" his dad. And then more people connected that to the golf clubs in the corner of the room, inferring that Guzma's dad had tried to use one of those clubs to beat him with. Another thing that some people have taken up as evidence is Guzma's talk about smashing things in frustration, and with him saying "Guzma!!! What is wrong with you?!" to himself after losing. The idea being that Guzma is mirroring the abuse that he went through by smashing things and scolding himself in the same way that his father did to him.

But to me, I think this is reading too deeply into things. The golf clubs in the corner could be damaged because Guzma has always had a short fuse that caused him to smash things whenever he got frustrated, which is something that I'd say we're led to believe happened quite a bit in his youth because his strength was never recognized in a way that satisfied him (this is explicitly why he gravitates to Lusamine, because she offers him praise). Look at his room - there are a bunch of bronze trophies and one silver, which his mom says he won for competing in battle competitions, but there are no gold trophies. He's always been in second or third place.

As for what his dad said, it's like... this is Pokémon, y'know? I get that Pokémon can have dark moments - just look at N's backstory - but what seems more likely? That Guzma's dad tried to "teach him a lesson" through abuse with a weapon that could have very easily killed a young Guzma or left him severely wounded (to say nothing of the moral implications of Guzma reconnecting with his parents in the post-game if his father did something so outrageously horrific), or that they had a dispute and attempted to settle it in the way that virtually every single dispute in this universe is resolved, through a Pokémon battle? (Which Guzma then won, and probably latched onto as validation of his own strength. A "See, I proved you wrong, old man!" sort of thing.) Compounding this is the dad's additional post-game dialogue that got added in USUM:

> "That boy of mine came waltzing back home after all this time, so I challenged him to a battle... and I got beat bad. Kids really grow up fast, don't they? And that boy of mine grew up to be huge!"

This firmly puts the phrase "got beat" into the context of losing a Pokémon battle.

But really, this was kind of a recurring problem with the Alola games, as you can see with the similar misconception that Lusamine's neglectful behavior was subtly influenced by Nihilego for years and years ever since Mohn's disappearance, even though that's not really how Nihilego works and even though the game portrays Lusamine as having never seen Nihilego until our first trip to Aether Paradise. In fairness though, I don't want to put all the blame on the fans for these misunderstandings, because perhaps the existence of the misreadings is a sign that the story wasn't clear enough in communicating its ideas.

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