Evo is the biggest fighting game event in the world, but it’s something that might’ve flown under your radar if you don’t care for them. Still, even if you’re a stranger to the genre, you’re likely to have already watched “Official EVO moment #37″ somewhere. That’s the name of a clip from an early iteration of the tournament in which Daigo Umehara has an unbelievable comeback after seeing his HP reduced to a point that it becomes invisible. Yesterday, on the second day of Evo 2024, we witnessed what many fighting game experts are already heralding as Official Evo moment #38.
In short, long time pro and legend Hayao likely made the best use of Hugo in the history of Street Fighter to seal the win against FrankieBGF’s Ken.
But there’s way more to it than just that. We cannot resort to Evo’s knowledge, as the tournament’s own Twitter account was flabbergasted when it made the tweet, so let’s try to break it down with the help of history.
What made Evo #37 moment special was something that immediately became known as the Daigo Parry. If you’re to rewatch the original clip, you’ll see that Daigo has no HP left, and he’s up against Chun-Li’s special. Dodging isn’t a possibility, and neither is blocking, as even blocking will let damage in. So, Daigo resorts to parrying, which means he had to perfectly time moving forward for every single one of the 17 moves that comprised Chun-Li’s special. At that time, not even most pros – certainly not Wong, the man up against Daigo – knew that could be done.
What happened yesterday wasn’t a dethroning moment for #37, but at least a worthy new addition to the legendary moments of the tournament. Hayao managed to use Hugo, arguably a much weaker character than Ken, to pull off another legend-worthy comeback. This time, instead of pulling off a perfect parry, Hayao successfully uses what most thought was a completely useless move to dodge Ken’s ultimate and get the win.
And that’s just the cherry on top of the cake, as Hayao also made the rounds for his absolutely hilarious pop-offs:
And masterful pre-match routines:
Let me remind you that this man is in his 40s. I say that not to shame you for being unable to pull off the splits – at least statistically – but because Hayao has been a tremendous player and a fantastic showman to watch for so long. Hayao ended up in fourth place in the Street Fighter Third Strike tournament, with MOV claiming the final victory, but It’s just really cool to see Hayao finally getting his deserved time in the spotlight.
