The 14 Year Old Who Conquered 40 Year Old Champions | Extra Trashy - Trash Talk

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We're back with extra trashy andthere's too much to talk about
because we had a massive weekendfor fighting games items over
here. We're going to blab about a lot
of things. It's time to yap.
We have Chengdu Fight Club Championship with of course a
brand new prodigy beating the crap out of old people.
Someone won $1.5 million playingfighting games and did.

(00:20):
Did it make any noise? I'm not even sure.
And of course, we have all the final CPT shakeups with the
final CPT qualifier going on. So let's go ahead and get on
into it. There's a lot to dissect with
this weekend's events. So Adam, I mean the spoilers
front and center here. 14 year old and now beating up the

(00:41):
world's best to claim the championship and the Captain Cup
qualifier spot in Chengdu, China.
Did you see this one coming? OK, so regular listeners of the
show might be tired of me bringing it up by now, but I
just wanted to say thank you. Thanks to your support.
We are so close to reaching partner status on Spotify and if
you didn't know, Trash Talk and Extra Trashy are available in

(01:01):
full video and audio on that platform with the final goal of
10,000 consumption hours being just within reach.
We are so close to making that partner push.
So if it's convenient for you and you're interested, please
consider checking us out on Spotify directly.
And for those who want to support further, you can check
us out at the Bryant F Patreon. There we have things like early
access to mainland trash talk episodes, exclusive content only

(01:23):
on that platform, and more connection with the extra trashy
community. OK, that's it.
Back to the episode. I would be lying if I said we
could even predict that grand finals cuz it's like George
Notaro versus Hanao is not on anyone's bingo card.
Anyone in the comments is like you know, I knew I knew this was
going to happen. This is an easy grand finals to
call calling you a liar. But it's something about these

(01:46):
young kids pick and read you andjust, you know, in heavy punch
and hash and Gekkin people is issomething with Ryu that attracts
the young kids. Yeah, I mean, so First off with
this past year, we had Blas who,you know, the, the, the momentum
for Blas is building and his World Warrior region for those
paying attention. But of course, he took the world
by storm with the Capcom Cup appearance in second place.

(02:07):
Then it turns out there's two ofthem.
We had Crimea. And you know, he made his big
mark beating up Daigo with Ryu as well.
And then we had Mickey, 17 yearsold Mickey at EVO with Cami.
And now we have him now joining the ranks of like the the under
18 club of, of kids just beatingup legends who've been playing
for as long as they've been alive.
And to be fair to the Rio players, there is a pattern

(02:30):
there. There is definitely a pattern of
being 1415 to 16 and beating thebest in the world with Rio.
And now got into the winner's side of top 8 and went to
winners finals playing I believeexclusively Luke, right?
So he, he, he got the job done in the end.
He was forced to switch off Luketo Ryu in the winner's finals
versus JoJo Tato. And he almost made the comeback.

(02:53):
He, he lost in the winner's finals 2 three.
I think it was last game, last round even, it was down to the
wire and he was out O2 with Lukebefore bringing back two games
with Ryu. And then he's like, wait, why
don't I just play Ryu? But yeah, this topic you
mentioned, I don't think a single person predicted it.
I went to the Brian F Patreon page to get some predictions and
people were looking for Tokyo towin, but nobody called this top

(03:17):
8. So I just want to run down the
list real quick when you go intoit of who actually made top 8
will get the placements out of the way.
Tied for seventh. We had Kills You out of France,
you know, staple in these high placing positions and then we
had the sole Chinese representative here in Chengdu,
Prince GR playing Kimberly. I had never heard of Prince GR
before. They have no previously

(03:39):
Wikipedia entries. Their start GG has no other
entries as well. I'm not sure if they're listed
on the China World Warrior page and some different characters
and not in the, you know, the the Anglo character alphabet.
It's hard to track what he's done competitively.
And this is what I was talking about.
I, I, I figured there'd be some kind of like new player that we
hadn't seen in the West doing well at this tournament.

(04:02):
And Prince GR was that dude. And just to give a rundown of of
who he beat, dig into that top eight position.
He beat Hibachi, Zhangiev, Zhen armporer, Travis Styles, Akira
and freezer. So this is not like no fluke,
like he beat Captain Cup qualified players, top level
players. He was doing a lot of work with

(04:22):
Kimberly. So I'm really impressed with
that run because we've never seen him play any of these
players or compete internationally ever.
And his first big appearance like that.
So I don't know if you get to see his gameplay.
Noticed anything about us, Kimberly?
It was weird to see because likeI said, there's a lot of, you
know, Chinese favorites. Like if you, I was surprised
there wasn't like a DCQ Zen VX bow, kind of like the the staple

(04:45):
name from that region that we'veheard of.
But you know, it's good to see somebody else kind of like, I
guess pick up the mantle. I guess it's kind of like how we
always we're always expecting like, you know, a guy goer
Taquito and top 8 and now we have like he now getting top
winning the tournament. So I guess it's just to show, I
mean, I don't know how old Prince was, but you know, the

(05:07):
new kids, new kids showing up, actually a new, new player.
Yeah, the China scene is really strong, but it's just so hard to
cross the Internet divide and really get an inside look unless
the the players travel internationally.
They, I mean, they have their own Internet essentially, right?
They have their own social media.
It's very that separated from the the Western social media

(05:31):
sphere. So I knew for sure that there
would be some big upsets or somenotable wins from players in the
region, but I wasn't sure who would, who would be or what they
would, who they would play, who they would beat.
And so I'm happy that Prince GR made into the crowd are made
into the top 8 because the crowdcame alive for him.
And that's the other thing I want to touch on too was I

(05:53):
wasn't sure how the event would actually play out because
there's been a few other major Chinese tournament CPT events in
the past and most of them have been pretty good.
But I remember one of them specifically I had to dig this
up to to drop my memory. I remember PPL Fighters Masters
2019. That was the CPT premiere back
in 2019, and I believe Hot Dog won that premiere.

(06:15):
But the first hour of the top 8 was a government regional
government awards ceremony. So the crowd wasn't like fans
trying to watch the game. The crowd was all these
individual fancy chairs for people in suits and tuxes and,
and business dresses all sittingaround.
And then they're like honoring Aesports proposal between Capcom

(06:38):
and the Chinese regional government.
And they all got up on stage andeverything and it was, it was
like, what is going on? This was on the Capcom Fighters
broadcast. You know what I mean?
We're sitting here watching thislike, when is the tournament
going to start? What is happening?
And so I was almost a little worried.
I was like, is this going to be like a, a weird like
bureaucratic show? But no, when the top 8 started

(06:59):
like it was a legit production and the crowd was into it so I
was really impressed with the level of production and show
they were putting on. When when I feel like it's
always good to have like a regional representation
representative in your top 8 because like we even saw evil
France when Crimson was playing and evil France, you know, the
crowd was super into it. I think that's really what makes

(07:19):
events like super hype. I feel bad whenever there's like
a regional tournament and like you don't get a representation
representative in the in the crowd.
Even when dual Kevin made top 8 at Cream City, you know,
everyone's kind of cheering for dual Kevin cuz you know
regional. So you know, it was all good.
I also want to give shout outs to them running the event in

(07:39):
general cuz me commie and smuggle was kind of live
streaming it during like the actual hours of it going on and
it ran very smoothly, minimal breaks.
They got up, they got the players up there out really
quickly. It was on PC, not I think there
was like 1 issue the entire tournament with somebody's take,

(08:00):
but everything was just kind of going like smooth and like
Florida State. Yeah, yeah.
I was really impressed with the the production, how it ran and
everything and just the energy of the event because I think
that's so important. The reason why the offline
events are better is because we see the players, we we get to
connect with their personalities, we get the energy
of the crowd and that was there.And I feel like there's been a

(08:21):
few events, like I mentioned before, that other one in China
where like that was it was not the right audience.
Like why is the front row just all these government officials
in suits who don't care about the game?
You know what I mean? Like that wasn't what happened
here. It was people who cared.
And when Prince was out there, we saw the crowd popping off.
I remember some dude was saying like Prince got a round final.
They get to Guto. He was going crazy.

(08:43):
Unfortunately for Prince, though, his his run did come to
an end in that top eight. He he did get 3 owed by Aguto
and they're my so we didn't get to see too much of him on the
big stage in the finale for the home crowd.
But I'm glad someone from tryingto made it in for sure.
It's always good to see that that home region be represented
in front of, you know, their people, their crowd, and so that

(09:06):
definitely added to the energy. So big shout outs to Prince, big
shout outs to the the Chinese Street Fighter six community,
super strong players. And I wish we could get more
visibility right. So this was a good opportunity
to get a bit more visibility to to what that community is
cooking up time for 7th also kills you.
He beat Mizuho hot dog hope Ryukyichi oil king on his way to

(09:26):
a 7th place finish. And this was actually his final
tournament under Carmine Corp. So he's that's a big club in
France. So this was his final tournament
with them. There's some kind of drama going
on with I don't even know what it.
Have you heard about how how much they care in France about
Carmine Corp? Like do you have you?

(09:48):
I know it's a bit, it's really big, but I think it's because
they have something to do with like football over there.
So I'm not, I'm not sure, but I'm not too into it.
But some football like. I've been trying to, I've been
trying to get more into understanding why they care,
because in the West I don't think anyone cares about E

(10:09):
sports teams at all, especially in the FGC.
They just don't care. In other E sports there's a bit
more of that, like team pride, especially like old school
League of Legends teams like that does exist, but nothing
like that really translated intoFGC teams because it's like a
solo adventure. It's hard to be attached to the
org. You're attached to the player,
not the org, right? And I do think that also stems

(10:31):
from literally football culture,soccer culture, right?
Like there's a real hardcore like you ride or die with your
team and you're meant to be obnoxious and like really like
biased as all hell because that's part of the fun is to
like ride or die with your team.And they have Carmine Court has
so much of that energy that I'veseen it bleed into the FTC
division, right with JDCR and kills you.

(10:52):
And I was like, whoa, like who? There are fans here that care
about the Carmine Court, like they care about their club, not
just the player. Like that was very unique to
see. So that was an interesting
experience that kills you brought into the FTC.
But if you follow like the French Twitter, like I started
digging into it and I was like, well, it's like a big deal
because it would completely havenone of that in in the English

(11:15):
speaking part of the FGC at all.So Bill, big shout outs that
kills you. He drops out at 7th, which which
means he's not going to end via points.
He's going to have to do it via the France World Warrior because
this was the de facto LCQ, right?
That's it. He had a maybe get second or win
if he wanted to qualify for Captain Cup.
So he's going to have to do it via the the France World

(11:37):
Warrior, which I think he he canwin, but he still has to deal
with like Mr. Crimson and all that.
I don't know. You think he's going to make it
in? There's still a lot of good
players in in France. But even then, you know, he had,
he had a hell of a run because like he lost in pools at at the
China CPT. So he went all the way from
losers, I think round two or three, all the way to top 8.

(11:58):
That's that's still kind of nuts.
And I know, like I said, he probably didn't have the right
he wanted to have, but like to beat all the players he did.
And what he got stopped by, he got stopped by Punk.
Yeah. And yeah, he lost the punk in
top 8, but I don't remember who beat him in pools, but that's
still crazy. I need I know a lot of the
players in France even kind of just like, you know, Crimson had

(12:19):
the run, but everyone crowns kills you as the best player in
France. So I I can see him winning his
world warrior. So I, I, I hope I hope kills you
does win his World War. I am a huge fan of his gameplay
even during Street Fighter Five with Karen.
So I I hope, I hope he does welland qualifies.

(12:39):
Yeah, that that French world warriors going to be super
stacked. He'll do Mr. Crimson Kusanagi in
there, Val Master Alfin, like it's not going to be free no
matter who makes it out. And yeah, he did go to pools or
go to losers in pools. I'm not sure if it was a a local
Chinese player or Japanese player.
I apologize. I couldn't get the the name.
It was not, you know, in Westernalphabet, so I didn't get a

(13:01):
chance to translate it. But he got revenge on that
player. He beat them later on in the run
back and then made his made his run ending in 7th place but
moving on to 5th place. Noah the prodigy and another CPT
premier top A man. Noah is such an interesting
player dude. Like his superpower is that he
doesn't he he says it himself. He doesn't get nervous man.

(13:23):
He just he keeps going to these international competitions and
then showing up when everyone counts them out.
It's even his home country, his own fans, like Noah was saying,
like, man, I'm about to move to Japan and China.
They love me out here. Like he loves going
internationally and just causingchaos in the bracket, popping
off and being, you know, full ofenergy, putting on a show for

(13:45):
the crowd. And he ends up in a fifth place
position. So on that way he beat despair
King Taco, Chris Wong, some notable, notable wins for him
and doing it all with Luke. So with Noah, by the way, there
was how many looks in that top eight, There was at least 2
looks in the top 8. There were, was it?
Yeah, 2 looks cuz there were three looks in top 16 and there

(14:07):
were two looks in top 8 which iscrazy you can think about.
Yeah, Chris Wong I think maybe got ninth.
I think he was about to be the other Chris Wong, the third Luke
potentially, right. So is is Luke making a comeback?
What? What's going on here?
Good. I don't even think actually
looks that good. But like, you know, he could, he

(14:28):
could. He has drive rush and he got to
throw loose, so he's got to do, he's got to be good character.
So people were saying that Luke is growing as a potential
counterpick to my I. I've heard some mumblings about
this. I I know Kawano said he wanted
to try Luke for my because Akumawasn't continue, which is very

(14:49):
strange to say because I feel like Akuma can't do any wrong.
But but yeah, I I've heard that in like a lot of the Japanese
players talk about it, but if Luke's counter picked him, why?
Maybe I I don't know. The rumor on the street is
because of how fast loose fireball can be, it's easy to
snipe my fireball and also prevent her from getting her

(15:10):
fireball on the screen in general.
That's that's some theory crafting I've heard.
I haven't looked too much into it myself.
That's just the rumblings I've heard of why Luke might be a
more popular pick for counteringmy because my is obviously the
problem, because I I mean, we haven't talked about too much
about my but you know, in this top eight we had kills you who

(15:33):
used my and jury Akuto with my and then punk, who was talking
about how he had to play constantly my the whole way
here. So he was complaining on Twitter
as well, like I had to play so many mice.
The game is in such a bad state.He he said publicly on Twitter.
I think because I, I think Punk's of the when Punk got into

(15:54):
top 16, I think he played four out of his five matches were
against my like it was 4 out of five matches straight because he
played Nam in my Chris Wong, my kills you my and jury Taquito
Ken, which is, you know, the surprise pick that he actually
had to play Ken and then he had to play Guto's Maya.

(16:14):
So he's playing nothing but Mayaat that tournament.
Yeah, yeah. So I guess props a Punk for
cleaning up the mice in the bracket.
I know some people are fans of my still at the high level
watching the gameplay, but I know a lot of people a little
tired of watching that character.
So Punk was definitely cleaning up the bracket from all the
mice, but once again shots to know the prodigy with that 5th
place finish. He did get into top 8 winner's

(16:35):
side and lost three one to JoJo Tutto and then lost three one to
Aguto Aguto's Mai had some good moments in those matches but
couldn't closeout some of the rounds and just as persistent of
ever as ever with his drive rushoffensive play style.
Man, there's no stopping that kid.
He's going to have to then try again to qualify for Captain

(16:55):
Cup. His last chance now is going to
be the US Canada West World Warrior.
And the weird thing about this, you know, Noah, he's been so
consistent. He needed to get like a third
place finish here to qualify forCapcom Cup.
Third or second or first, like top three basically.
But then if you go look at his World Warrior placement right

(17:18):
now, he's not even in the winner's side of that World
Warrior for US, Canada W, He's going to be going to the
regional finals on the loser's side.
So it just shows the he always complaints about online
tournaments. I don't know, Does he have a
point? To be fair, even during Street
Fighter Five, we've always had the players who said they played

(17:40):
better offline than online. And then you always have the
players that play better online than offline.
So I'm not too surprised. Like, I don't know if it's a
psyche thing or like you play better with the when you could
hear the crowd versus like you're sitting alone in your
room just right in front of yourcomputer desk and like, there's
nothing but silence. So I, I believe it.
Maybe Noah is one of those people who feed off the energy

(18:02):
of the crowd or just, you know, you got to be somewhere.
You can't, you know, sit at homeby yourself because it gets kind
of weird. So maybe it's just one of those
people. I can believe it to an extent,
but I wonder if there's another side of it because yeah, if you
look at the the US West World Warrior, they're getting ready
for the regional finals. On the winner side, it's Chris
T, then JB, then Nephew, then Chris CCH, then you drop into

(18:22):
losers. Enzo, DOMA, Noah, the prodigy in
Samurai. That's a really stacked top 8.
And the weird thing about it, it's like it's full of players
that don't travel anymore. Chris TJB, Chris CCH, that
winner side, they, they're not going to like any events, right?
Am I? Mistaken.
Yeah, I I mean, I don't think so.

(18:44):
I mean, I yeah, you're actually right.
I wonder why. I guess Chris was like really
good with his head during StreetFighter League.
Nephew travels to events. Chris TI don't.
I'm not really sure and I wonderwhy it's so weird.
I mean, there wasn't a lot of American players who travelled

(19:05):
to events in general. Like I said, I think the only
people who went to every event from America was Noah, Nephew
and the Jack and Knuckle do I think.
I think there are only four out of our region who went to every
single event. So yeah, maybe Erica's lazy.
I don't know. But they also got the
sponsorships for it. It's kind of like the the people
in the West Coast are still really good, but this is not

(19:28):
their primary focus. I mean, Chris is like an
aerospace engineer, like, you know, like he's got other stuff
going on. JB is no longer sponsored and is
working his his own, you know, his own thing.
Christie all was also working aswell and I think he was kind of
taking a back seat to competing and then suddenly got pulled
back in. Now he's back on Street Fighter
League. You know, Christie always kind

(19:49):
of like takes breaks, comes back, takes breaks, comes back
and he is very impressive because he never seems to really
falter or fall off, right. He's always, whenever he gets
back into the groove of it, he'salways one of the the strongest
players in America and always a world class threat.
It's really impressive to me. And the nephew, of course, is
like of the the Noah sponsorshipcaliber where he's going to

(20:09):
every event and also competing. So that region is really
stacked. So I wonder if it's also those
players just know Noah that well.
I wonder there's an element of that because Noah is absolutely
a wild card. He's his own unique style, which
I think other people are, you know, starting to emulate a
little bit. We'll get into that, but I think
these these players might just know him really well.

(20:31):
Funny enough, during Street Fighter Five, we always had this
running joke, like the first time you play Oil King, you're
always going to lose to him because you're never going to be
ready for a style. I wonder if it's kind of maybe
Noah has the same thing where it's like, you know, the first
time you play Noah, you're not going to be ready for it.
But the more and more you play them, the more you're just kind
of like, OK, now I'm kind of expecting this.

(20:51):
So it might be one of those situations as well.
It could. I think there might be an
element of that, but to just to be fair to Noah as well, he
definitely repeats like he knowsit's that good.
Like I I always want to bring that up to counter the narrative
of all like the people who are just molding because they just
don't like his antics for the way he plays.
Like no, it's just that good. And he does beat players
consistently at the highest level.
Like there there's a handful of players.

(21:12):
I think he's beating Chris Wong a bunch of Times Now.
He's lost to Chris Wong as well,but I think he has a winning
record. If I'm remembering correctly.
There's a few other players thathe NL he's beating more than
he's lost. You know, there's a few top
level players were like it's notjust unfamiliarity at this
point. He's just beating them.
But yeah, it's interesting to see internationally he's one of
the most consistent top level American representatives and

(21:33):
then apparently he's not even top 4 back in his region for
World Warrior. But shots to know again. 5th
place finish strong season. Taquito in 5th place as the most
senior member of Reject esports and more ways than one, but also
the lowest placing of three Reject sponsored players in that

(21:56):
top eight. That is nuts.
That's a crazy stab. But Tokido back in 5th place
rocking Ken I believe for the entire bracket.
I'm not sure if he busted out any other characters.
Did you see him playing anythingelse besides Ken?
I I think I only saw him play Ken.
I never remember seeing any JP. OK, yeah, on his way to that top
eight, he took out Aqua Nauman and DCQ.

(22:16):
He got into the winter side of top 8 and he was the first
victim of A now the first match for Taquito and top 8 winterside
and now versus Taquito and now three O over Taquito with the
Luke, mind you, And that's when we got to see it was it was
finally Taquito's turn. You know what I mean?
Like many, I don't think we've seen him fight blahs, crime or

(22:40):
Mickey. You know, we saw a lot of
legends fall to the kids so far.We saw Crime beat the brakes off
of Daigo as CEO and it was finally a time for another
legend to fall for the young prodigies, so that match was a
beat down. Well, Taquito actually did get
he got beat really badly by Blaza Evo Japan actually, I mean

(23:02):
Evo France actually, yeah, he did.
He got I think it was a three aswell.
I definitely got three as well there too.
But it's weird cuz when he played Blas, it felt like a more
controlled dissection. When he played Hanau and
watching that match, he just gotran over in my opinion.
He just like he couldn't stop anything.

(23:23):
He's getting jumped at, you're getting dry rushed at.
He just, he, he was like a deer in head lice and Hanau was just
kind of pushing forward, kind ofmanage overwhelming the old man.
Right, right, yeah, good catch on the Taquito blahs point, by
the way. Yeah, at IBO France blahs and

(23:44):
the loser side took out Taquito 31 and Taquito played JP in that
match up. He won the first game of JP Moss
three O after and yes, with withHanau or or the Hanau versus
blahs Blahs is very offensive. Absolutely, but it's a much more
technical and every option fits neatly into place.

(24:05):
You know what I mean? It feels like a mosaic collage,
right, where all the pieces, thepuzzle pieces fit perfectly into
place. And now he's much more of the
school of Noah, right, Like I'm watching the way he plays and
I'm like, holy crap, I'm seeing like Noah, I'm seeing, I'm
seeing the vision of what Noah represents.
There is a lot of situations where there's always a follow up

(24:28):
option to whatever is represented.
So he'll press standing medium pick with Luke and neutral and
then with hit block. It doesn't matter.
He's probably going to raw driverush immediately after.
So he sets up spacing traps and with trap scenarios where like,
you know, you purposely with a button or you try, you go for a
poke and you say, don't worry. If they try to with punish me

(24:51):
because I happen to miss space, I'm going to put something
behind this. And with punish their with
punish. The Street Fighter five player
would just press another button there, right?
The Street Fighter six player goes, I'm gonna whip a button.
If they try to whip punish me, they're gonna miss and I'm gonna
have a raw green Dr. Rush comingout and I'm gonna run in right
behind their button and beat thecrap out of him.

(25:12):
And had now represented that mind game consistently.
Watch the way he he presses buttons, his timings, the way he
whiffs things and then drive rushes behind it.
And eventually, once he uses that option enough, he whiffs
something and then he just jumpsinstead or like he, there's
another option that he mixes behind these options.
So he's constantly building the mental stack as he goes.
And I'm like, dude, I'm watchinglike the the school of Noah

(25:35):
here. I think even Noah had a tweet he
retweeted. He he said earlier in the year,
he's like, oh, if he now followsthe, the school of Noah, he's
gonna body everybody like he Noah had some kind of call it to
Hanao like a few months ago or maybe a year ago or so about how
he could level it up. And I could see the influence
between these two players. So out of the gate 3 O with

(25:57):
Luke. He ended it of course with the
button into DI against Okito. Taquito's mental stack.
It's just I, I'm very curious because like I know Taquito's
always kind of have like a real struggle with kind of stopping
DII just think he's, he's thinking about so much and it's
it's killing him or like, I guess he wants to try to play a

(26:19):
slow game, but it's kind of hardto do that in Street Fighter
six, especially with like how drive rush and you know, jumping
and all this, all this stuff works.
So I don't know if he's just nervous, getting overwhelmed, he
wants to try to slow down. There was a lot of situations as
well that I pointed out. He now would drive rush at him.
He would do like drive, rush, crush, jab with Luke, but every

(26:41):
time he did that, he would just tech immediately because he
thought a throw was coming in. He now would shimmy him and then
put him in the corner. It's like it's such an awkward
thing and it gets kind of overwhelming.
And I feel like the default thing to do when you're scared
and Street Fighter in general isthe tech and then you're just
going to get blown up for it in this game.
So I don't know if he's scared, can't move, stuck in the mud.
I don't know exactly what's going on, but yeah, Shao said.

(27:02):
Now he played play really good. Yeah, and I think the the focus
there is to avoid those situations.
Like what's happening to Taquito.
He doesn't play defensive. He's just it's all gas, no
breaks for the most part, which seems to be the favored option,
which is that's like I keep referencing the school of Noah,
right? It's like, why allow yourself to
slow down South that you were giving the opponent an

(27:23):
opportunity to then build their own offense where your mental
sex is going to get overwhelmed.Keep the mental stack always in
your favor and pilot against theopponent with your offense.
So that's how he now plays. Absolutely.
There's there's still moments oflike slower neutral and picking
his spots, but as soon as he finds 1 little opening, it's
like OK, time to go go, go, go, go.
Because this is going to be the most advantageous way for me to

(27:48):
shift the risk reward into my favor at all times.
Whereas you see some other old school players, it feels like
they're trying to pick safe openings and that actually just
leads them to be overwhelmed because there's too many options
being cycles. So maybe, maybe we all get to
adapt, man, I don't know. I, I, you know, there's a saying
that you know you don't in, in basketball, you don't really

(28:10):
need defense. The only thing is you got to
think you don't have to play defense.
It's just that they score 150. You just got to score 200.
That's all you got to do. Well, that's, I think that's the
the new school way of playing man.
And I'm really seeing the vision.
I, I really was. It was very eye opening to see
how dry rush was utilized. Like it was really interesting

(28:31):
to see the, the situations whereraw dry rush was coming out.
And I mean, there's even some sequence for now like with like
15 buttons in a row and then then did raw dry rush and I was
like, what a baller. I was like this is he would re
you like even in just the grantshe was just like he whiffed like
5 crunch medium punches and they're just like drivers jab

(28:53):
and I'm like, damn, why did thatwork?
And I was like JoJo tars just scared to hit a button Like he's
just he's stuck in the mud. He's watching him flail and it's
like he doesn't really know whatto do And then he just gets like
jump scared drivers down. Yeah, exactly because you're
scared of being smacked and being you're having your health
liquidated at any moment. So he the the you're in the
driver's seat, like canal just finds way to puts himself in the

(29:14):
driver's seat in any situation. So that might be the way to
approach it. And I actually dug up the actual
tweet from Noah. He quote tweeted himself.
He said, I've been watching Street Fighter since I was 8
years old. I know more than all of you on
God. And the tweet he quoted was he
quoted from August 5th. He said at and now if you
implemented my hood play style, it's over for everyone on God.

(29:39):
So maybe maybe Noah is corrupting the youth man.
And now said you know what I Noah, Noah, I will implement
your hood play style on. God, yeah, that, that that's all
I needed to play saw. I'm telling you man, you can see
the influence. It was nuts.
There was a lot of similarities between their gameplay.
So after Tokido lost it, now he did go to Losers and there was a

(30:01):
classic Punk Tokido showdown. But Punks is kind of pulling
away from it with Tokido. You know, people used to give
Punk a hard time, you know, for the 2017 loss to Tokido for
years. But as of late man, Punk's doing
it now with the Sea Viper too. It's kind of 1 sided.
It's weird because the way I seeit is like it was close in five

(30:25):
and I love watching them in fivein six, I feel like it's just
been all punk. That's that's how I kind of feel
it's been. But yeah, you know, I've been
watching punk sniper a lot. I watched all the Japanese St.
all the Japan streams when he was playing all the Japanese
players with Viper. So it was cool to see him pull
out Viper in the tournament because, you know, I, I've been

(30:45):
playing a lot of Viper and I like, I've been learning a lot
from Punk, but he kind of just dissected Tokyo.
But at the same time, I feel like Tokyo played the way Punk
wanted to play and then kind of just like faltered.
He kind of fell into his trap ofwhat he wanted to do.
Yeah, I can't find a match whereTokyo is actually beating Punk
in tournament. I remember they had a really
close set in the LCQ for season 1.

(31:08):
Captain Cup LCQ but punk still. Won that one.
Yeah, it was close. It was the closest one, I think.
Punk it was. Closer, yeah.
Yeah, it was the closest one, I think.
But since then it's been kind ofa wash, right?
And yeah, Punk doing it solid three with the Sea Viper.
I don't know, Is it still a rivalry at this point?
It's it's, it was a rivalry in six, but like, I mean, it was a

(31:29):
rivalry at 5:00, but in six it'skind of just been all punk.
Yeah, yeah, I, I think so. I think Punk has the edge.
And it was cool that Punk bustedout the C Viper for that because
I was wondering what he was going to use this tournament
because he goes to EVO France, He said I'm dropping cami.
And he plays almost all Ed. And then he went, goes to Japan
to train up for both the Chengduand for Street Fighter, the US.

(31:51):
And he's playing only C Viper from what I saw.
And he's like #1 in the CPT leaderboard with C Viper that he
goes to this tournament and he'splaying mostly Cami.
I don't know. I was like, you never know what
Punk is going to play. It feels like.
I think Kami might still be the comfort pick.
But then he busted out the Sea Viper versus Tokido and it was
just solid man. Just he he shows that you don't

(32:12):
have to spaz out with the character which is, which is
also I think, but that's the better way to play.
But that's what I want to do. I just want to spaz out.
I don't want to play neutral. I just want to jump around,
that's why I want to play Viper.Yeah, that's what I felt too.
Like when I finally got a few days into her, I was like, OK,
let me actually play Street Fighter, you know, let me like
actually slow down a little bit and not just constantly try to

(32:34):
do faints and like, you know, side throw, faint over and over.
Then super jump, burn kick. And like, yeah, you can you have
moments where you can do constant special move, cool
stuff. But Punk shows that actually
she's kind of solid. And then you have your moments
of building your offensive momentum and do it in classic
punk style. Big 3 O for punk over Tokido.
4th place though was Aguto and we're getting to the ejector.

(32:58):
Sorry, the reject youth division.
So I mentioned Tokido was the most senior member of the reject
squad. Reject who you know, they're
really big team now in Japan andyou know they sponsor Tokido.
Their, their team also includes the birds now they expanded to

(33:19):
sponsor them. And then their actual Street
Fighter League team includes players like Fudo and Daigo.
You know, they're, they got a lot of star power on that team.
That's the most star-studded lineup in the FGC in my opinion.
And they also expanded to have the youth division, which kind
of stretches the definition. I don't know.
Some of them are like 24. I don't know, but they have

(33:40):
Taco, Ujiro, Aguto and Hanao. Hanao is definitely youth 14.
So Iguto is part of the youth division.
And in this top 8, there's threereject players and two of them
are from the youth division. And they all outplace Taquito,
which is crazy to see the development, the forward
thinking like what? What?
How amazing is that pick up? That's probably the most
successful roster pickup I've ever seen in the FGC.

(34:03):
Well, I think he now, I think henow picked up Street Fighter
like 11 months ago. I've seen people on Twitter
saying he's only been playing Street Fighter 6 for just 11
months. So the to see that and get the
that pickups kind of insane. I, I'm not too familiar with
Iguto, but Taco, you know, shoutout to the DVFZ player.
He's my Vegito goat. He was one of the sickest Vegito

(34:26):
players actually. So I'm not really surprised that
he kind of got picked up like he's I know he's fairly young,
but even then I knew he was, youknow, good at fighting games
because like he had one of the best Vegitos in the world.
So I guess he's trying to I guess, you know, Dragon Ball is
not doing anything too hot rightnow.
He's probably switching over to Street Fighter six.
And obviously from my perspective, you can play one

(34:48):
fighting game, you can play themall.
So he's probably just trying to get his, you know, feet wet with
in Street Fighter 6 lines. So you know another like really
good pickup. Yeah, I wouldn't consider Taco
to be like the youth division. I'd almost consider him to be
like the B squad. You know, I mean, like, it's
clear they're trying to have like these separate divisions
and develop their players, whichis a great thing.
Shows how much more mature the fighting game esports

(35:10):
environment is in Japan comparedto anywhere else, and the level
of popularity of the game as well to be able to support such
a initiative. Yeah, but talk I would consider
like maybe he's the B squad and they're trying to build him up
to be the A squad. Whereas like now and Aguta, like
they're young now it's just young.
Like he's 14 years. Insane.
And you're right. Yeah.
The rumor is he's been playing for 11 months and he started

(35:31):
with Smash Brothers and he doesn't play on level as he
plays on pad, which I think shows the Smash Brothers bias.
So the word on the street is he got his awareness for fighting
games from Smash Ultimate originally and then switch over
to Street Fighter. And apparently he's been running
the CPT replay like content farms.
So if you go onto YouTube and you look up like #1 ranked,

(35:53):
whatever, Luke and whatnot. And now it's been probably
apparently like the poster childfor all those replay channels
for a while now. So if you've been in that scene,
you would have noticed him. I think he he's like Blas.
I'm sure he just plays every show to I think I've seen him on
Luke, Akuma, Ryu, Ken, it doesn't matter.
Like if you got a fireball and ADP, he's probably been using

(36:15):
you. So I think, I think he's kind of
in the same boat that Blas is in.
Yeah, definitely. It seems like the the kids play
all the characters they they just know the game inside and
out, which it it shows man, shows the skill.
But back to Aguto yeah 4th placefinish for him on his way to top
eight he beat Mr. Crimson Cosa, Chris Wong.
He took out Taco as well. DCQ and I beat Prince Junior in

(36:37):
the top 8, so 4th place with my not a bad finish, but that was
he was one of the my's that had to be slain by punk.
Punk with a three O over Aguto ending the run but big place
with Guto and that and you know props to reject again for
picking up with the for the youth division.
But on to the third place. Punk has his run ended by Hanau

(36:59):
with A3O with Hanau's Ryu over his both.
I think he tried both Sea Viper and Cami if I remember
correctly. Man, that was a clashing of
styles dude. I don't know if I've ever seen
someone steamroll Punk like thatbefore.
Like he beat the brakes off Punkthe the with the drive rush jab.

(37:23):
Pump fakes into donkey kick. How many times did he do
driver's jab to halt his momentum?
Punk tries to interrupt the drive rush with a button and
then he does donkey kick to smack the crap out of Punk.
He did that at least five times during that set.
Like he was playing with a Punk's reactions and using all
the different drive rush optionsto halt his momentum.
Change his trajectory and he's steamrolled punk.

(37:46):
It was bad. Yeah, I, I, I was always kind of
like skeptical playing like Viper versus Ryu, because Ryu
just like kills your drive meterand like, Viper is very drive
hungry. So you kind of just don't have
like you're you're running out of moves because you can't super
jump cancel. You can't really do combos
because Reeves just you know, Tasha Gecki E Tasha Gecki kind

(38:10):
of taking all your drive meter away.
And then even with cami, like a lot of it is like punk trying to
play reactionary, trying to stopthe drivers.
But like if you're dealing with driver's jab or drivers, you
know, driver's jab and donkey kick, you're going to get
smacked. You're going to get smacked.
I don't care who you are, you'regoing to get hit.
It's just so cruel. It's like you, you can't just

(38:31):
react because it's still a guess.
It's it's if you play with your reaction timing to actually
interrupt the dry brush and theystop short with the with jab and
then do donkey kick. Like that was just a guess on
both players parts. So and now definitely understood
how to use punks reactionary style against them because
that's usually what punk thrivesis like controlling the chaos in

(38:52):
this game and bringing it down to more of a slower pace, which
is usually very, very rare. And so generally punk is good
about doing that even of playerslike Noah, right?
Like the players that employ that style heavily.
Normally punks pretty good aboutstopping that, but this time no.
And didn't Punk also beat Crime if I remember correctly at CEO?

(39:14):
Am I am I hallucinating that right?
So Crime is another player who very much full full steam ahead
right? Who employs a lot of those same
tactics but Punk was able to to stop him, but now like really
managed to overwhelm Punk in a way it's extremely rare to see.
Yeah, yeah, it's Capcom. Please take out driver special.

(39:34):
Move, I employ you. Please take out driver special.
There's still time. There's still a few updates left
for this game. Please take out the driver.
It doesn't matter that he did drivers with jab and then
special move. It doesn't matter.
I think still no, there's still there's still a few drivers
donkey kicks that it's just likewhy our driver scissors?
I think I punk. I think punk actually lost the

(39:55):
DCQ because the guy by driver scissor and bites and took like
50% or something. Right, yeah, because he tried to
low forward the drive rush and the driver scissors right over
the low 4 to punish counter combo.
It's part of the game, man. I don't I don't see them
changing that ever. That's that's never, never
changing. Please, please just get rid of
it. I, I think that's the game,
dude. I think the whole point is to

(40:16):
see how much you can over. Like I'm telling you, I'm
watching him now watching the kids.
I think that's the point is to see how much they can overwhelm
you. And that's just part of it.
Like you shouldn't be react reacting to almost anything.
Like that's not the point. If you can react to something
and confidently shut it down like that breaks the design
philosophy of the game. You need to be rotating options
and guessing. And and if that becomes too

(40:37):
overwhelming to deal with, good,because you should be doing that
to the opponent first. Yeah, yeah, I I guess.
But man, it's, it's such a weird, weird way to play, weird
way to kind of see how Street Fighter are.
Going you're preaching to the choir here.
I'm just trying to, you know, I'm speaking to what I think
that the direction of the game is.
You know, I, I, I'm stronger myself and more comfortable with

(40:59):
a slower paced, reaction based kind of neutral game.
But that's that's clearly not where this is going.
And I, I'm very impressed with, like, it's clear to me a little
bit that the younger brains, they're not biased with how
fighting games should be or how they're supposed to be played.
And they're totally molded, man,totally molded by the the Street
Fighter 6 system. And they are taking it to new
levels that I didn't even know were possible.

(41:22):
Well. Well, that's just different
though, because like if you're young and like, you know,
hypothetically, like, you know, I was 17.
I mean, I guess Smash you could maybe react to stuff, but like
if Street Fighter 6 is your first fighting game, you don't.
You don't know any better. You never played any of the
fighting game. You just think this is how all
fighting games are. Right.
I mean, he's he's 14, by the way.
I don't know if you said he was 17.
He's literally 14. No, no.

(41:43):
No, but no, I was just saying like if, if Street Fighter Six
are, yeah, Street Fighter 6 is your first fighting game, you
might just think all fight gamesare.
You don't know any better, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I just firmly believe in,
you know, the plasticity of the young mind, like these kids are
picking this stuff up quick and that that's a consistent theme
amongst all of them. The all the other consistent

(42:04):
theme, of course, is people are starting to talk about Ryu a
little bit. You know, there is a common
denominator, Yeah, with Ryu being a little old juice stop
man. A little juice stop.
Yeah, Rio's kind of crazy because at the same time, I'm
still so surprised Kashuyeki is still -3 and you get a combo on

(42:26):
counter hit. I still think him getting the
combo on counter hit is nuts, but Kashuyeki being -3 is just
like a very, I don't like the toxicity of, you know, redoing
jab Hoshigeki jab Hoshigeki whenyou're in burnout and it's just
like it's a looping into it. So it's kind of like Terry doing
like jab, Crouch, medium punch, crack, shoot over and over.

(42:48):
I don't think any of those should be in fighting in true
runner 6. But you kind of can't take it
out because then you're like yougot to make every special move
on safe basically. And it's like, what are we doing
so. Don't you think Terry's is
weaker though? Like Terry's is absolutely
weaker than reuse because on topof Rio having the loop, he can
also then sneak in a heavy and reset it really easily.
Like Terry has a harder time I think resetting the loop.

(43:11):
Like there's a lot of pushback and you can use air invincible
moves to interrupt it. And so I think the conditions
for the loop to continue long enough are more strict than Rio
and Rio has more flexibility also to to sneak the loop again
with like a media or a heavy hash show out of nowhere, right.
So I think the Rio one on the scale, if you had to rank them,

(43:32):
I think the Rio hash loop is like really up there.
Terry's up there too, but not asmuch like, but it's a It's a
weird. Design philosophy, I think
they're all just pretty toxic. Like I, there's like maybe like
6 or there's about 7 or 8 of them in the game where they're,
they're just kind of, you know, silly and toxic.

(43:53):
I, I think Cami has one as well.Like there's so many of.
Them yeah, Cami the the hooliganloop you can you can jump after
an air reset, right? Like that's like there's counter
play like they're all toxic, butthere's like some subtle counter
play for a lot of them where RyuI think has the least amount of
counter play and the most amountof variability is what I'm
noticing. But I know you're just
complaining about this because they're used seven or eight.

(44:13):
They used to be 8 or 9 with 1 Manon.
Don't think we forgot Manon usedto be the most brain dead of
them all. Man Medium.
Punch but but like I said, none of them should be in the game.
I'm I'm kind of like, I'm glad they got rid of Manons, but none
of them should be. Oh, now you're all bad.
Now you're glad they got rid of Manons.
Yes, they're. All back, Capcom.

(44:34):
Got rid of Manons Stan medium punch loop.
They should they should all be removed even though I know Dave
went like what the fuck? They got rid of my they got rid
of my medium punch loop. You're getting all preaching
about this now. Excellent design choice, Capcom.
They should all be equally removed.
Yeah, it's it's a little BS, butI don't I don't think that's the
worst part about it. I mean the burnout loop is one
thing, but I do agree that Hashagaki should be -4 because

(44:58):
it can't do it can't do a launching combo on counter hit.
It can't be a frame type frame trap also for lights and also be
plus and burnout and also be a great fireball fake out and
Perry Bates and also be barely with punishable.
Like people miss the with punishall the time.
You get counter hit off after itjust does everything.

(45:20):
Right now. Light Hashegeki literally does
everything and then on top of it, you have the mix with the
heavy to steal turns and everything.
So I think that one move light hashegeki as it does is right
now does way too much. It does everything.
There's almost no downside. And even if you block it, try to
take your turn back, you might DP or do a perfect parry right
after. Like there's too many layers for

(45:40):
Rio to just keep going in that scenario, in my opinion.
So that's one thing I definitelynoticed about Rio.
For sure. The problem is I think Rio is
doing combos on block and I think that's very unhealthy
whenever there's a character like that in just fighting games
in general. I think of Leo and Guilty Gear
when I think of this, but if youdo your combo on block, there's
a problem. Like you don't have to hit

(46:01):
confirm whether it hit. It's just like, I'm doing this
because why not? It's usually just kind of
obnoxious. Yeah, yeah.
So I think that's that's one thing they could tweak about
Ryu. Just make that -4 and are just
one of the properties of it makegive one more downside to that
move. And I think it would be a lot
more healthy. It'd still be really good.
And people these these, you know, young kids would still be

(46:22):
beating ass, I'm sure. But there's selfie moments.
You're, like, left scratching your head a little bit when
watching where you go. But now took that reu and took
it over punk. Oh, you got one more point.
What's up? Yeah.
I was I was going to sack it. I got a whole list of stuff that
you can nerve for about REU. Let me let me get out of Capcom.
Let me, let me. I mean, you could listen, look,
the real players there is too defensive, man.

(46:42):
We got to be. We got to be.
We can only drop one at a time per episode.
Because even even just talking about the Hasho Gecki, which is
clearly, clearly something's up with that move, you'd have to
have the blinders on to to really argue in good faith that
that move is OK. I still we there's still plenty
of comments like wow, you guys hate Ryu with his honest hard
working. There's so many like Ryu

(47:04):
defenders. I'm not saying he needs to be
gutted or anything. Just maybe hashtag one move and
then maybe next episode I'd on we we get the propaganda machine
going in the next episode, because clearly we're all
pulling the strings around theseparts.
Capcom listens to us. They care what we say.
Obviously. Yeah, and now three over Punk
goes to the grand finals and then grand finals, JoJo Toto

(47:25):
versus and now dude, nobody called this.
Yeah, nobody called this grand finals.
I also want to point this out before you know anyone else
feels like me. I did the did the math, did the
research, did the numbers. The only person who is expected
to get this top eight that got this top 8 was punk.
Everyone else was completely outof left field.

(47:48):
Just saying. Just my just my, just my $0.02.
What are you? What are you hold?
On. I'm not implying anything.
I'm not implying anything. You're clearly implying a lot
of. Fakes with your body language or
tone? What are you implying?
I'm just saying. What?
Are you saying Punk was the onlyone who got top eight that was
expected to get top 8? And that means what are you?

(48:08):
What are you? What are you trying to say?
Idah. That that means Punk is an
amazing player. It it actually does like, yeah,
I'm so I'm so impressed with anyone with consistency at this
level. But yeah, I mean, dude, first
the two with level of play and and the volatility of this game
is just crazy. Anyone who's broken through and
and made that consistency, even Tokido, even though he hasn't

(48:30):
been getting like amazing top finishes, he's been pretty
consistent. Like he's been getting a lot of
7th places. You know what I mean?
Like that's that to me is still incredible.
Like if you get several premier 7th places, I'm like, holy shit,
dude, you're a God. Like that is so good in this era
of competition. Too many good players, damage is
too high and 1st to two, which is an insane format.

(48:54):
Yeah. So no one can predict the top
eights these days. There's a few.
There's a handful of players that breakthrough and JoJo Turto
and Hanow were not two of those leading up to this.
In fact, to highlight how surprising these results were.
First of all, Hanow has zero anddid not have a liquid pedia page
beforehand, Right? So I don't know if he's competed
in the World Warrior Japan's or not.

(49:14):
I, I, I try to dig it. Start GG didn't have any info.
I couldn't figure out what he's done before.
Right. So this he's one for one baby
like this is this is crazy. Yeah, retire on top.
Why not? But JoJo Toto has been
competing. I did remember seeing his name.
He won Tiger Uppercut 2024 in Street Fighter 6.

(49:37):
However, tiger uppercut you knowit used to one at one point be
part of the CPT circuit have a lot an international
competition. This one was more of like a
regional event. I would say 123 players.
It wasn't a CPT event Taco was there JCH human bomb Santaro.
They're still very strong players there for sure, but it
didn't have you know the world'scoming together to compete

(49:59):
right. So he did have a big regional
event under his belt. But like you look at the World
Warrior Japan Juja Todo got and the the last three, 64th place,
128th and then top 24. And then like those are the
level of placements. Ekutu as well, right?
24th, top 192 and top 64. Like that's the placements these

(50:20):
players are getting in Japan. And that's not a knock to them.
That's better than Tokido. Tokido has like no points from
the World Warrior Japan at all. He's been bombing those.
So it just it's so hard to compete.
And those were their best results before this top 8.
Maybe maybe took you to like Noah where it's like he plays
better off live. He might actually be one of
those people because he, I feel like Tokido thrives on the, the,

(50:43):
the audience too. He's always like, you know, fist
bumping, cheering on the audience, kind of like getting
them into it. So maybe he's kind of the same
thing, you know, kind of the same thing that Noah has where
he prefers to play offline. But you know, when you're in
your own home staring at a computer screen by yourself, it
gets kind of like, I don't know,you get kind of like punched up
or scrunched up and you're like,it's kind of kind of awkward.

(51:06):
Maybe, but I mean it's not like these guys were smoking everyone
in the world warrior either. It just goes to show it's so
hard to predict. There's there's like 100 and 200
top level Japanese players who could potentially make top 8 any
CPT premier, right? Like a literally could be that
way and JoJo and now happened tobe the two today.

(51:28):
Like I had no way to call that they would be in grand finals,
but JoJo said, oh you know, he had a really great run as well
to the top eight. He beat VX bow Oil King and then
took out Noah and now in the top8 on the winners finals because
that's when and now figured out,oh, I should play Ryu, not Luke.
Grand finals On the other hand, you could see the power scaling.

(51:52):
There was a stretch there where he now was just beating the crap
out of. JoJo said, oh, he brought it
back eventually to make it a close set and to bring it down
to the final game, but man, it just felt like Canal was in the
driver's seat the whole time. JoJo Tutto had a much more
calculated and safe playstyle, amore traditional pre Street

(52:13):
Fighter six era playstyle in my opinion.
And you can see that clashing here because he allowed him now
to be in the driver's seat in somany situations.
And that to me is a losing strategy.
I think is what we're seeing, especially with Ryu, the with
the the the power of Ryu, like you need to take control quick
and that's what he now did. He took control of of the the

(52:34):
matches and close it out three, two and after the reset And the
big thing about this 14 years old, the youngest player now
ever to qualify for captain cup.The age keeps dropping all in
one season. It was, you know, 16 with blahs.
It was probably going to be 15 with crime, a most likely likely
from the World War Europe and now jumped the gun with 14.

(52:55):
He wins the tournament. During the tournament he already
had the E sports sip. I don't know.
He was so composed. His energy was not of a young 14
year old teenager. He was locked in on the screen.
He was playing the game. He would do his Level 3, take a
sip of the water, go back down and play.
It would like all the Japanese pros do.
They all sip the water in the Level 3 animation and risk

(53:17):
spilling their water bottle completely composed.
So ready for the moment he wins.The moment he wins he stands up
and walks over to the trophy. The trophy stand is twice as
tall as him and he puts his arm up and and aura farms next to
the trophy frame one. I was like dude, this kid was

(53:38):
born ready to win this tournament.
He was right. He he knew he was going to win.
Maybe, I mean, I've had tournaments like this.
We've all obviously seen the thethe hungry box meme of him
crying when he was about to win this fast tournament.
And he kind of already for David, maybe, maybe he now just
knew he was like, oh, I'd be punk.

(54:00):
Well, it's tournament's over because I had to download a REU
in winners finals, but I knew you wasn't going to be ready for
this. So yeah, he's probably already
getting his celebrations ready, getting his aura farm ready.
He's probably, you know, lookingup some Fortnite dances on what
to do after he won. So.
Yeah, you know, Shallow said. But he wasn't, that's the thing.
Like, you would expect him to belike a bit more scattered, you

(54:22):
know, have some more, like, neurotic energy to him, you
know, like a kid, right? He didn't have any of that at
all. He was so composed the whole
time, even in his aura farming, it was like he's like, yeah, I'm
the best, you know? What I mean, what do you want
him to do, Brian get up and floss dance as he won the
tournament. I don't want.
Him to do anything. I'm just saying he showed like a
level of maturity in preparationfor this high stakes, high

(54:45):
pressure moment. Like he did pop off a little bit
when he won. He was excited, you're right.
But it was still like I was likedude, he's so ready because
think about it, I'm drunk. Comparisons.
Remember when Annie Walker won UFA 2022?
Like the first major post COVID and Street Fighter five?
He was the prodigy at the time. He wins UFA.
He walked up into Val Masters face and did ADP in his grill

(55:08):
like a fucking boss. Like it was insane.
He wins, he stands up and he walks right past the trophy, off
the stage, past the cameras to the crowd and he sits down.
See, Andy Walker was not ready. He was not ready to win that
tournament. Meanwhile, this kid, he's it
just it's clear to me that he has grown up watching esports,

(55:31):
you know what I mean? Like the way he behaved, it's
like he understood the decorum and the the event at a deeper
level because he grew up watching this literally.
Maybe. Maybe it's just a youth
division. Maybe he had to like, study all
the all the tournaments Taquito ever won and had to have his own
celebration ready. I saw Taquito in the way he

(55:53):
grabbed that water bottle. He hit Level 3 grabs water
bottle sip back down every time.And every Japanese pro does that
100% of them sip the water and put it back down during the they
don't even sometimes get any water Akira.
I've seen Akira like miss the the water sip so many times.
Yeah, there's an it's a quick, they have to do it.
I've seen a Kira miss it like, oh God, I put the bottle back

(56:14):
down. But he nailed it every time.
And then he he nailed the the aura farm at the end.
So it was crazy to see how prepared he was for that moment.
And now officially in Cap'em cup, 14 years old.
Is it over? Idom is it?
Is it a young man's game? You know, on the box for Street

(56:34):
Fighter Six, they say this game is rated T for kid.
I mean, you're rated T for teens.
So, you know, maybe this is a young man's game.
Maybe we got to be teenagers again.
We have to have the teenage mindset to get a Street Fighter.
It's just interesting how I I draw the comparison to chess
like street fighters become a much more multi generational
game where, you know, the chess grandmasters were becoming

(56:55):
younger and younger. I mean, I think they're like 10
years old now, becoming grandmasters.
Like it's an absurd, absurdly young age, ages now they're
becoming chess grandmasters and they're beating up people who
are literally like 40 years older than them.
And so Street Fighter, I think it's very cool how in the same
top eight, we have Tokido who's now 40 years old and then the

(57:16):
winner who now is 14 years old, and they're all competing at
this really high level. I think that's a really great
thing to see. And also, we're having new blood
in the scene and they're very strong and competitive.
I think overall it's an amazing sign.
And I'm grateful that we have new players stepping up and
replacing the old generation. Yeah, time to time to move on,

(57:38):
you know, start, start a podcast, buddy, You know what
I'm saying? They're trying to get them to
retire. So I'm really happy to see these
new players step up and do big work.
And with that, we have the finalCPT shake up.
This was the final CPT event of the season, so the players who
qualified via points. Punk now had 600 points, so he's

(57:58):
the highest not auto qualified player.
Blahs ended the season with 770 points, but he got the auto
qualifier via Evo France, so he's the number one in the
points. But Punk's there with 600,
Memochi with 570, Kobe with 510 points, Ryu Kichi with 490, and
Dual Kevin with 470. And then a tie between Hibashi

(58:21):
Zhagiyev and Annie Walker for that final 6th place position.
But the tiebreaker for the points is your highest placement
in a tournament. And Itabashi got second at Comma
Breaker. And Ending Walker's highest
placement was fourth at Comma Breaker.
So Edabashi takes that final qualifying spot over Ending

(58:42):
Walker. So those are going to be the
qualifiers via the CBT leaderboard.
So I'm happy Dual Captain made it in.
I'm happy for Edabashi, but man,what another heartbreaker for
Ending Walker. He had a very similar situation
last year as well. Yeah, I knew Walker is so good,
but at the same time you're, I mean, you're UK was a super

(59:06):
region this year. So you should have, I hate to
say that you should have probably stayed home and played
in the in the world Warrior. I feel like you would have
qualified that way if that was kind of an option.
That was that's what happened tohim last year last year I saw
him at CPT Japan and I said, what are you doing here?
You should be playing in the world warrior at home.
And he skipped out on that one and Lex ended up taking the auto

(59:29):
qualifying spot with the most points and then in the regional
finals, Broski had the clutch come back and all that and
broski ended up taking the tournament over any Walker.
So no any Walker in captain cup,even though that whole offline
season he was really consistent again, right.
He had the 6th place at Evo or not 6th, 3rd place at Evo and
then a lot of right placements as well.
But that season was like only auto qualifiers.

(59:51):
This year they added the point system once again.
He's pretty consistent all year,year long.
No, no big wins, but placing really well and he did pretty
good in the world Warrior. But Lex ended up Lex auto
winning by like 5 or 10 points in the auto qualifier.
History might repeat itself. Honestly, it could happen again
this year, Yeah. You know, just kind of a tough

(01:00:14):
spot for ending Walker to be in,like he could have easily
qualified from his region, I feel like.
But you know, it's good on him because, like I said, I like
seeing him complete compete. Maybe he's thinking, you know,
get more practice, more international practice instead
of just playing the players in in your region.
So I guess it's better that way to eat.

(01:00:35):
Just try to get even stronger. But even then, you still got to
take advantage of some of the, you know, easiest I'm, I'm
going. To interrupt you and and
clarify, I think he was in everysingle CPT World Warrior for
this region for this year. Last year he did one or two.
He had a a couple fumbles. He had a fourth, a top 16.

(01:00:58):
Let me clarify. 1/4 a second, a 12th, a 9th place A and a first
and a first. So that's how close it was.
Like that's how many top placements that Lex had was
because Lex just happened to do really good.
And the other ones Lex won #3 and did really good.

(01:01:21):
And the rest of them, like he always had top 2 or top three
finishes. So Lex was just slightly more
consistent overall because ending Walker kind of faltered
and so Lex got 10 more points than ending Walker.
It was very, very narrow. But so I think that one 9th
place kind of cost any Walker where Lex never fumble like
that. So now now he has to do it via

(01:01:42):
the regional finals and that that's it.
If he loses that tournament, no ending Walker and Capcom Cup
again. Yeah, it it's.
I don't know, it's so strange. I feel like any Walker's kind of
been like one of the stronger players in EU, but like it's
always like weird to not see in my Capcom cup.
And actually, now I'm thinking about it, there were no, we have
no EU representatives on the regional, on the global

(01:02:05):
leaderboard at all. Actually look 4 Japanese and two
Americans right? Yep, that's who made it in via
the leaderboard, right? Which you know, it's only top
six, right? It's pretty cutthroat, but I
mean, we all predicted it was going to be a lot of Japan,
right? Like that's just, that's what
the leaderboard is for. Did you?
I felt like, well, I guess for my my theory, when I first wrote

(01:02:29):
the global leaderboard, I was expecting 33 Asian, not
necessarily all Japan, but like 3 Asian players, probably two
Americans and at least one EUI guess we were close to that
happening. But yeah, I it's, it's, it's
weird to see no European players, I guess.
I mean this, this was it, man, this is this.

(01:02:51):
This was the tournament, right? Any Walker and it Abashi were
both at Chengdu, but they both drowned in pools.
So it was up to fate to see where if they even had the
tiebreaker. But as soon as any Walker didn't
get the points to jump over it Abashi like that was it.
There was no way pretty much andthen duel Kevin.
He got 10 points from this tournament, but really the
reason he got in is because PunkGate kept Tokido and then Noah

(01:03:13):
lost as well because no one Tokido could have done well like
top three, top 2 and then dual Kevin would be out, right?
So there was a lot of see where the points land at the end of
this. But in the end, you know, we
have our qualifiers and other than that, all that's left is
World Warrior. So World War Japan is still wide
open. So who knows who's going to get

(01:03:33):
the auto qualifying spot and theWorld Warrior regional finals.
So there's still going to be twomore players from Japan who are
going to get that spot. And then every region still has,
most of the region still have their regional finals upcoming.
So if you have one favorite player, man, check the World
Warrior and that they have to, it's do or die.
It's do or die at this point. If you're not in on that
leaderboard or the auto qualifiers, man, it is stressful

(01:03:56):
coming up to see who's going to qualify to play for $1,000,000.
But you know who didn't play for$1,000,000?
All those people over at the S&KWorld Championships this last
weekend because someone won $1.5million playing a fighting game,
I don't know if it made that much of a buzz.

(01:04:17):
I don't know, man. It's crazy how much money
they're spending on this. $1.5 million playing Hotar, OK, But
yeah, Lagya kind of did really well.
I mean, like I said, it's so much money and you can't even
fathom what you would even do with all that money.
But like getting that much moneyfor playing City of Wolves is

(01:04:39):
crazy. But you know, they're just kind
of throwing money at all the SNKgames.
Even King of Fighters, Art of fighting.
There's one more Sam show. I don't even I not even sure who
won Snap show, but it's so crazy.
They're just kind of tossing money.
Yeah, How much money was it overall the prize pool, Like 2
point something million or even closer to 3,000,000 for the

(01:05:01):
total prize pool for all these games, which is just nuts.
And yeah, so it was Fatal Fury, State of the Wolves, the King of
Fighters and Sam Show and Art ofFighting 3, which is just an
ancient kusoge game. And it just like it's the side
of government just funding all this, right?
Ridiculous pricing for not much engagement.

(01:05:22):
It's so bizarre. I mean, I do want to celebrate
the big winners, you know, FatalFury, State of the Wolves,
Laggio won 1.5 million. He won over Goichi in the in the
top six there in the finals there.
Xiao Hai had a really good run. He ended up in fourth though,
but except versus low cough was actually super insane.
I actually watched that so really entertaining gameplay.
But I don't know, the finals ended with like not that much

(01:05:45):
fanfare. I feel like the better storyline
and the more emotional moment was definitely KY 15 with Lao
Yagami. I apologize if I'm
mispronouncing it from Brazil winning in KY over Xiaohai and
I'm not familiar familiar with him beforehand.
But the story is that he was a big community proponent for KOF

(01:06:07):
in Brazil who's kind of leading the charge for promoting KOF,
teaching it, being a figurehead for the scene in Brazil.
And so like a really what a really well respected and
beloved figure for the BrazilianKOF community.
And he happened to win over likeall the legends that he admired
and respected so much and got the grand finals over Xiaohai

(01:06:28):
who like that's the goal. If you play KOF, it's like to
win the grand finals for the world championship over the
legendary Xiaohai. Like that is the dream moment
for KOF player. And Lagami did it and walked
away with a cool $500,000 for his trouble, which is crazy.
So congratulations man. Like that's life changing money

(01:06:50):
for sure. And then Samurai Showdown was
won by Masatan who won $250,000 for that first place.
And Art of Fighting 350 thousandthat to sow SOU out of Japan.
What a weird. What a weird.
Time what a weird timeline because like I'm sure there's a

(01:07:11):
lot of people who probably neverheard of that game until it got
announced for the the world finals.
So how are they picking these games?
Aren't they just like this is mya lot of people are just like
this is my favorite SNK game andnobody plays it.
That's though I don't know 200 grand at it like it's so.
Strange. It's whatever the Saudi Crown
Princess favorite game is. Dude.

(01:07:31):
Like I'm, I'm serious like this.Like they, it's just their pet
project. It's just they like the S&K
games and they threw a bunch of money on it to make a tournament
happen 'cause there's no way they're making any return on
this. Unfortunately, the viewership
was not that great. I think there was like 4000
viewers, 6000 viewers total Max on Twitch for these tournaments.
It was held inside of Dream HackAtlanta.

(01:07:52):
It's like a side event, you know, the fanfare just wasn't
really there for the prize pool.No, no disrespect to the
competitors or the games themselves, but it's just I, I
have to point out the weird juxtaposition between the
massive, massive amount of money.
I mean, Loggia now has the most money in the FGC by far just
from this one tournament. And also shout out to him, this
is a repeat champion. He won the SNK World

(01:08:13):
Championships in 2023 for KOF and now did it for Fatal Fury.
So like great competitive achievement and took it away
from Goichi and Xiaohai. Like everyone's looking for one
of those two to win, especially Goichi who's been on a tear.
He won EVO and esports World Cupfor this title but Laggy gets it
done in the end. But wow, it's crazy how much
money they're throwing at it. Or not that much success.

(01:08:35):
I mean Fatal Fury is struggling to maintain a player base.
I think it's in the double digits for active players from
what I saw on Steam. Even though I think a lot of
players to be fair, on console it's not successful.
Like this game is not a successful game in terms of
attracting an audience and on top of that, they announced the

(01:08:55):
return to S&K World Championships in 2026 with a
$4.1 million prize fold with thesame games including Samurai
Showdown and including Art of Fighting 3.
All the games are back. We're so back.
Oh my God. I got to practice my art of
Fighting 3 right now. Got to get that, what, 100K for
winning? Yeah, it was.
Got to get the easy one. It was 50K this time.

(01:09:16):
You can do it. I mean, Diaphone got 8th place.
He got $2000, Yeah, he he said he practiced like 8 hours
basically. Wow, 8 hour only 8 hours.
Something like that. Or maybe it was a little bit
more than that, like maybe like a couple of sessions, but I
might be butchering the exact figure there.
But it wasn't his main focus. He was in fatal Fury, right?

(01:09:38):
But unfortunately for the fellowcontent creator, he he went Owen
to I believe like last game, last rounds, like close, close
Owen to Owen to. But it was close kind of deal.
But yeah. Yeah, so he didn't do too hot on
Fatal Fury, but I I think like he was, he was tweeting out like
a lot of the players, they were just kind of saying like, you

(01:09:58):
know, Ronaldo kind of sucked. So, you know, don't play Ronaldo
because there's a lot more better characters in the game.
So I saw this tweet about like, he wants to stop, you know,
trying to be a character loyalist or like trying to make
this weird character work and, you know, just go straight to
the top. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the Hotaro was kind of running the show there, like.
Yeah, the City of Holes, like Balance is like, it's kind of

(01:10:21):
like there's the good character,there's obviously the good
characters that you should probably be picking the good
character. Yeah, especially with 1.5
million on the line. So it's, it's crazy to me that
this is still going to happen again next year.
Just flushing money down the toilet there.
There's zero chance in hell thatthey're making a return on
investment on this. It's just a such a bizarre time.

(01:10:45):
But I mean, I'm absolutely thrilled for the players who can
pocket the money. That's crazy.
Like, these guys have been playing these S&K titles for so
long. And so it's cool to see that S&K
loyalists and and players who have been really dedicating
themselves to these games being rewarded for their efforts.
So it is producing some interesting storylines at the
end of the day. But man, that juxtaposition of

(01:11:07):
money spent on prizing and the lack of engagement on both the
player counts and the viewership, it just goes to show
to me that you just can't buy hype.
Like, like, yeah, it's an interesting experiment and you
would think that it would be a big factor and it matters a
little bit the pricing in terms of engagement, but it's not

(01:11:28):
everything like the marketing spend and all that.
And the pricing spend on Fatal Fury, City of the Wolves, it's
not correcting the ship in termsof getting people interested.
So I've, I've, I've had this theory too.
And it's funny because like since the China CBT, it's weird
because like there's no kids playing the game.
Like it's so strange because like I feel like all the people,

(01:11:50):
I think they even had like an average, the average age for I
think the evo top 8 at at EVO American evo was like 37.
So like, where are the kids playing, You know, the S&K
titles? That's what they actually need.
They need like a youth program. All the kids are going to play
SF6, but they need more kids to play, you know, City of the

(01:12:11):
Wolves, like King of Fighters and pocket the money too.
I think that would actually get more more people into the game.
But I don't know if it's like city, not kid friendly, I don't
know. I don't know about it.
It's just not cool. Like kids don't care about this.
The only thing these games have going for is the nostalgia
factor. Fighting games are not a cool
genre. So like Street Fighter Six has
managed to be cool to a larger audience and also there's too

(01:12:35):
much friction to the game. It's not a free to play game,
it's a full price game. The menus are ugly and the it's
just like, it just doesn't look good and it costs money.
Kids are not good. You're not gonna you put up too
many barriers to get a new audience to the game.
So all the people who are picking the game up are like
people who have already been in the scene and are older and are
fans of S&K and Fatal Fury is asa niche IP.

(01:12:59):
It's really hard. It's essentially a new IP,
right? It's essentially what it is to
the vast majority of people on the planet.
And so you have no legacy to a wider audience.
You have to make the game appealing.
They tried, man. They tried marketing it to a
younger audience. They paid KSI and I show speed
to do advertisements. They put them in the game as
digitized avatars pretending to to play the game.

(01:13:21):
They made them stream it. They did a live event where they
played the game. They spent a lot of money on
this trying to target a younger audience.
It didn't work. Like it's just not there.
Unfortunately, to say it doesn'thave that it factor.
And whether that just be the character designs, the gameplay,
the packaging, the pricing point, the product quality, I

(01:13:44):
don't know. Probably all of it.
But it goes to show you can't just throw millions of dollars
at the prize pool and have that translate.
To large player base and sales we got to have we got to have
like a an FGC sit down with likelike all the the young prodigies
of Street Fighter and ask them why why Street Fighter like why

(01:14:08):
not smash? Why not city?
Why not all these other fightinggames?
Because like I I feel like there's such a a weird kind of
experiment to be kind of had in that kind of conversation.
But it's so weird that like theywould choose street fight.
Like I don't think Street Fighter is obviously like Street
Fighter is probably the most popular fighting game that's not
smashed, but at the same time it's Smash is right there and

(01:14:33):
then, like even if it was for the money, then city's here.
Like Street Fighter's just kind of like in that middle ground.
But I guess Street Fighter has the IP.
But even then, bro, Smash got Mario.
So like that kind of it has the hierarchy.
So I don't know. Street Fighter just broke
containment in Japan. It has the legacy and it also
has the ease of access because it's a well made game with a

(01:14:54):
large player base and great net code.
And it has iconic characters andSmash online sucks.
Right. That's it.
That's. It, I honestly think that's a
huge selling point, right? There's no hoops to jump through
with Street Fighter Six online. It just works.
I, I think Street Fighter Six just came at the right time and

(01:15:14):
with the right quality and it exploded in Japan and other
people get into it and that makes you get into it, right?
You're more likely to play whatever your friends get into.
Then the V Tubers got into it. Were the V Tubers playing City
of the Wolves? I guess not.
I guess he got me there. That's that's the difference
maker if we, if we, if we. Got V.
Tuber on Hotaru or or or Kane orwhoever.

(01:15:36):
Then it's over man. Like it'd be over, but instead
it's Street Fighter 6. We need more V tubers.
That's that's that's that's the take away.
We need more V tubers. I mean it, it's more like just
wherever they go, the audience will follow.
We just gotta we, we, we can't force it to happen.
You can't force it to happen. But if if the V tubers picked up
the game, it might we might be we might all be, you know, hotel

(01:16:00):
remains at this point, right? Who knows, who knows?
All right, that's going to wrap it up for this episode.
So many events to cover this time.
Let us know what you thought in the comments below.
I'm interested if anyone had predicted to now you're lying if
you did. But let us know what you think
about the CPT and how it's shaping up and the S&K World
Championship. It's a very interesting time
providing games, a lot of going on at once.

(01:16:20):
And we're, you know, culminatingto the conclusion of another big
season. So thanks for tuning in.
We'll catch you in the next one.Peace.
Hey, you made it to the end of the episode.
Thank you so much for tuning in to Extra Trashy.
If you're watching on a video feed, either on YouTube or
Spotify, the names you're seeingon the screen scrolling past you
right now are the names of our Patreon supporters over at

(01:16:41):
patreon.com/bryan under score F This show including Trash Talk
and Extra Trashy is possible dueto their support.
So we wanted to take this time to give a very special thank you
for supporting the show. And thank you so much to
everyone who tunes in to Extra Trashy and Trash Talk.
We'll catch you in the next one.Peace.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The 14 Year Old Who Conquered 40 Year Old Champions | Extra Trashy