The Super Smash Bros. player that's taking over Street Fighter | Trash Talk - Trash Talk

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
A common question that I get is like, oh, how do you not get
nervous? I know what it feels like to
play at A tournament. I know what it feels like to
play on the big stage. First is everything in the FTC.
Literally, if you're not first, you're last.
I don't really get nervous at tournaments.
I actually like it. Like it's really fun.
It's really fun. Riddles takes in a combo forever

(00:21):
over slice. Oh no, no way it is and Riddles.
This is your big house Ted SuperSmash Brothers Ultimate Champion
Riddles. What an incredible climb to the
top this player has had over thepast few years.
Riddles man, he is here and he is a Street Fighter player now.
He is a tournament winner. He is not just a top player in

(00:43):
the game, he is a tournament winning, capable player.
Anything less than that is not going to be satisfying to a
player like him. Today on Trash Talk, we have a
very special guest, because normally we have excellent
representatives from just the fighting game community, But
today we have someone who's beencooking the gaming world in

(01:03):
general with FGC characters for quite some time, both in the
Smash world and now becoming quite possibly maybe the best
Terry on the planet in Street Fighter Six.
We'll see what he has to say about that.
We have riddles. How you doing man?
That's good. How you doing Rah?
I'm doing great. It's it's awesome to have.
You here. I'm looking forward to this.
That's that's about time. You've been putting in the work

(01:27):
and it's really been paying off lately.
And for people who might not have been following as closely,
you know, you just recently had a string of amazing performances
in Street Fighter Six. You've been kind of on a little
bit of a world tour recently, starting with Gobble in Canada
all the way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, through the esports
World Cup LCQ, then through UFA Top 8.

(01:48):
So I just want to say First off,congratulations on all your
recent success. How does it feel to finally be
like making this pivot to full time Street Fighter bear some
fruit like it's actually coming together?
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

(02:08):
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(02:30):
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on that platform, and more connection with the extra trashy
community. OK, that's it.
Back to the episode. It's been it's been an
interesting Rd. because with Street Fighter Six, this is my
first year of really going like super full time in it.
Since like the game's release, I've been balancing both like

(02:53):
Street Fighter and smash, right,or trying to do both at the same
time together, which I did not suggest.
I didn't. I don't suggest if you're a
fighting game or maybe just E sports player in general, to
play two games at one time and trying to be the best at two
games at the same time. It just kind of divides your
focus. So I mean I've always played
Street Fighter. You some miss and like I played
a lot, but I didn't really have like, I guess that spark to like

(03:16):
really, really, really be the best.
And then Terry came out and I was like, Oh, shoot, I got to, I
got to try hard this. And then he sucks for he's then
he sucks for like 6 months, but he got he gets buffed.
So it's OK. Yeah, I'd say starting like, I
forgot, I forgot the patch. Oh yeah, it's the December patch
when he started to become like, you know, decent, a decent
character because when he released it was kind of rough.

(03:37):
But really the pivot started when I got dropped by Liquid
since I used to be a part of Team Liquid for like 3-2, three
years in Smash Ultimate, right. Then they dropped us the whole
Smash Ultimate Team on I believeApril this year.
And then at that point I was like, well, I gotta I don't

(03:58):
think there's any more sponsors I can get here probably.
So, you know, why not just try to try this full time street
fair stuff? I mean, it's still rough.
I still haven't really gotten anything right now.
I think the E sports industry right now and as a whole is just
kind of in a rough spot. It's it's it's in, it's in a
little bit of rough spot. So I've been trying to
prioritize streaming and whatnot, but I still try to

(04:21):
like, go to these tournaments, right?
Because it's still like, you know, it's still something I
really enjoy doing. Although honestly like going to
Saudi Arabia was such a crazy like thing to do now that I
think about it. You've been all over the world,
man. We'll we'll get into the
specific details about that whole journey.
But I guess I do want to get on,you know, cover your origins a

(04:43):
little bit, especially since I think a lot of people listen to
this are going to no more traditional FTC.
And I think your story is reallyinteresting from the perspective
of an OG fighting game fan and and competitor because we've
never had a Smash player come over to traditional fighting
games for Street Fighter. I would argue and compete at the

(05:05):
level you're doing right and I Ithink.
For Street Fighter. Yeah, that that there's always
been such a rift between Smash and traditional FTC for so many
years. And I've seen that first hand,
right. I'm an O niner so I saw the the
culture clash for many years before I feel.
Like. Post COVID, there's been kind of
a firm divide, like they kind of, it's almost like there's

(05:27):
they gave up trying to merge thecommunities.
But I remember for years like seeing it, the clash happen
first hand and all the CEOs and everything, it was just and
there's still I think traditional FTC, it's two
complete it's. Two, it's 2 completely
different. I mean if I'm going to be

(05:48):
honest, it's 2 completely different communities.
Like someone who's actually in both communities the
demographics are, I mean, well there's just not much crossover.
I mean, like the people who playSmashed are completely different
from the people who play fighting games, although I argue
the same is the is true for likeactual fighting games.
Like people in the Street Fighter, I think I'd say like

(06:09):
the Street Fighter community, the anime community and the
Tekken community are all like basically completely different.
It just has the, it just has like the connection of the fact
that all we're all playing traditional fighting games
together. I guess.
I guess they all watch it together too 'cause you know,
they're all at the same tournaments.
But but yeah, no Smash and FGC completely.

(06:30):
I'd say completely different demographics, completely
different, like people that I meet, right.
So, yeah, I, I, I say it's very different.
But yeah, I, I, I, I, I would, Iwould agree with you.
Yeah, I would agree with you. So, so it's, it's interesting
that you made that jump, right? And, you know, I personally have
never had this belief there, there used to be a stigma that
like, oh, Smash is a easy game to play.

(06:50):
And then there was, you know, these high and mighty
traditional FTC players who assume just by the virtue of
play, playing traditional fight against are so much better,
which is completely not true. I, I've never understood that
mentality, right. And so it's, I find it very
intriguing that you're kind of breaking that mold and that
stigma. And other players have done it
in other games as well. Like we've seen a lot of Smash
players gravitate more towards like faster paced titles, Smash

(07:13):
or, or like either Strive or Taggames.
Void's now cooking into a scale,for example, right.
We've seen it more than those other faster pace titles, yeah.
It's avoid like like #1 into X scale right now.
If you can get good at one competitive field especially, I
think there is a decent amount of skill transfer between Smash
and traditional fighting games, more than like say coming from

(07:34):
Dota or whatever to a fighting game for the first time.
But they're still very differentto.
But there's some crossover there.
So if you can do it in one game,you can do it in another, and
you're doing it now in Street Fighter at a level that hasn't
been seen before. But you actually started
competing in Smash. I I went through your Liquopedia
results and if I did the math correctly, one of your first

(07:55):
tournaments listed on there. You're 15 years old for Smash.
Four, No, no, that's not even the, that's not even the
earliest tournament I've ever been to.
I mean, the, the earliest tournament I've ever been to was
probably some random, a Toronto local called Smash on Tab.
And I was 13 years old and I wasplaying Smash Wii U 2016, I

(08:15):
think it was June 2016, OK And Iwas with my dad and he drove me
to this like random, you know, poutine.
Yeah. Like poutine restaurant that
they had. OK in this like a Smash
tournament in some poutine restaurant.
Yeah. That was the first time I've
ever been to. And you're playing Rio already,
so I. Think that's yeah, I was playing
I was playing Rio and I beat a lot of PR players, power ranked

(08:41):
players. You know how you know another
culture divide that Smash and FGC have is is in region like
rankings. A lot a lot of people care about
rankings in Smash. But anyways, the people who are
who were like ranked in Toronto,I beat a lot of them right as
like a complete like online warrior, just playing offline
for the first time. Because I played, I, I, I was

(09:02):
like, well, people in Smash, they call them Wi-Fi warriors.
And I was basically a Wi-Fi warrior for like 2 years.
People in Smash just call onlineWi-Fi for some reason.
Right. I mean, the consoles have no
Ethernet port, right? Like originally.
Did I mean you could use like a Ethernet adapter, right?

(09:23):
But like if you. Need an adapter?
That means everybody's on Wi-Fi.So yeah, exactly.
You're basically playing online.I definitely.
Think they need to change that for the whole culture just to
like get rid of Wi-Fi. I mean the switch to the switch.
To right exactly it's. Smash, I think.
That's one thing about Smash culture, you got to change that
so that the the future generations.
Understand. Hey, we need to get that

(09:44):
Ethernet cable, so yeah. That's Smash 4.
You're playing Smash 4 online with Ryu.
So how did you first end up on Ryu?
Because throughout your Smash career, like besides just being
one of the strongest players andwinning a lot of majors and
placing really well, you're doing it with the FGC
characters, right? You're doing it you so you start
with Ryu and Smash four and thenyou know, you're playing Terry

(10:05):
and Ultimate and then Kazooyu aswell.
So how did you gravitate to Ryu when you're, I guess if I'm
doing the math now, 11 years old, starting when Smash.
Why? 11 smash used to have this like
ranked online matchmaking systemon like a website called anthers
ladder and it would basically simulate proper like ELO right,

(10:27):
but you would just go in like custom rooms obviously and I
played that for like 2 years. That's how I got like competent
or like good, I guess at Smash. And it's definitely a big part
of my growth as like a fighting game player is like that sort of
experience. And I was playing Captain Falcon
and this replay just wrecked me.He just wrecked me with Rio.

(10:47):
He like just came out. I'm like, what?
That dude, what the hell is thischeap ass character?
I'm going to play him. OK.
I thought he was cool too, right.
So I was learning like the inputs and stuff right on the
fuck on like the little I think I used to play.
Yeah. I was on gig controller at the
time. Yeah.
So I was trying to learn, you know, fighting game inputs, the
GameCube controller learning. I learned fighting game inputs

(11:10):
through Smash Brothers, which islike wow.
I mean, honestly, it's pretty lenient in those games, so it's
not that bad, but it's just funny looking at how people in
2035 still like still like, you know, like struggle a lot,
right, you know, with the whole modern dilemma and no, no
problem if you use modern by. The way, but just to explain
that control scheme in Smash, like I from my understanding, I,

(11:33):
I dabbled with it a little bit. It was kind of like it had
modern inputs for the FGC characters, but you could also
opt to do the traditional inputs.
And yeah, what was the the reason?
Like I think mechanically you got a benefit from doing the
traditional. FGC inputs yes yeah if you use
the traditional FGC inputs, yourmoves are they're just stronger
and they have like more attributes.
For example, the shuriken has more invincibility.

(11:54):
Obviously, if you actually do like the the normal input, it's
way it's way, way, way stronger,it has less lag, you know, stuff
like that, stuff like that. So doing the traditional inputs
was very even even like to this day.
So it's very optimal to do that,right, compared to just a normal
modern input. OK, cuz they would have they

(12:15):
literally, they literally just have worse if you just use the
modern input like the normal smash input, it's just worse.
Just straight. Up.
Would there be any situation where you would opt for like the
simple input just for reactions?When you I'd say when you're
like recovering from from the stage, like if you're trying to
like, if you're like down under the stage and you're trying to

(12:35):
get back up, it's kind of awkward doing the destroy you
input all the time, right. So it most people would just up
up for like upbeat or just the modern input, whatever.
I guess if you're falling off the stage and you missed your
uppercut, you just die. That definitely happened.
I've definitely, I've definitelyjust went like, fuck, I'm gonna
do the input and then it's just like a.

(12:55):
Lot of controls right there. Yeah, exactly.
So you literally gravitate towards Ryu just because some
guy beat you up online? There wasn't any other like
inspiration for fighting games even before then.
Did you have any other influencelike seeing Ryu in action
anywhere or is it just seeing itin Smash?
I got into fighting games because of Ryu and Smash.

(13:16):
I got into fighting games because I started playing this
character and I was like, wait, this character's really cool.
What game did he come from? Wow, so you didn't even know Ryu
as a Street Fighter character atall before?
I mean, like, I, I, I didn't know what Street Fighter was
like. I didn't know, like, you know,
roughly, right, fighting games and whatnot.
I was like 11-12 years old, right?

(13:38):
Yeah. I played this character for a
while. I'm like, I wonder what game
this guy has, Right. I started playing Street Fighter
Two on the Wii U Virtual Console.
That was my first real fighting game, I guess you can say.
So when you were playing on the Street Fighter Two, was that a
bit of a shock going into that game?
Like I'm curious what your impression was coming from Smash

(14:01):
and then jumping to like the OG Street Fighter Two.
Did you have any sense of like, oh, this is weirder.
This feels strange to even pilot.
Like, it felt very natural to me, actually.
Really. The the the biggest struggle was
just fighting the cheap ass CPUsthat read your your button
input. Yeah, facts.
That was that that was probably the most struggle thing, but
I've never like I've never in mylife struggled to do like a

(14:22):
motion inputs like consistently.Right after that I actually got
into Street Fighter 5 because I was like, oh, I wonder what
what's the newest game at the time?
And the newest game of time was Street Fighter five season 1.
I got it for my birthday, I think, and my first ever main
was Yurian because I thought he was really cool.

(14:42):
You know, I actually played a lot of, I forgot this part too,
but I actually played a lot of fight Gate as well as like a
little kid. Before.
Like no, not, not, not before Smash.
Like after you came out, I started playing third strike.
Like very casually. Not I wasn't good, but you know,
I'd play. I actually had a friend that's
in school at the time that I'd also play with actually OK.

(15:04):
And we'd play like third strike together.
We'd play like super toe together.
That's awesome. OK, so it seemed like you really
dabbled like once once you found.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And smash you, you found you
think how to play some more games.
Yeah, people think Street Fighter 6 is like my first ever
fighting game ever. Like, no, I'm not sure it's
very, it's very not true, no. I'm more of the classics from a
very young age. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(15:25):
Probably more so than me. Street Fighter 6 is the first
one that I actually take like seriously seriously, right,
Because, you know, I play StreetFighter five, but I didn't I
didn't I wasn't that good in that I picked like what Ultra
Diamond I I switched to a Kuma later, right?
I mean, I've told you this before and you may be you might
have remembered it or you might remember it now, but you don't

(15:47):
you didn't remember it at the time when I met you at Ceoi
think I think I met you a post COVID as CEO.
Yes, or I told you it was evo but.
We played in Street Fighter fiveme and Brian Neff.
This is some crazy deep lore foryou guys, but me and Brian Neff
used to play each other in the the depths of Street Fighter 5
ranked match, and I was playing Akuma, his classic ball rock

(16:11):
skin. And I do remember taking games,
yeah. No, you knew how to play but.
But but, but you would always win.
Not to glaze, not to glaze, but you would always.
All the sets I would get the set.
Yeah, you always win the set. Yeah, I went back through your
Twitch chat history not to creeptoo hard, but yeah, I was trying
to. I was trying to pick up.
I was like, when is the first time?

(16:31):
Riddles? I remember you being in my
stream chat for a while before Ipieced together.
I used to be called shin riddles.
OK, that used to be my old tag. I'll be in your twitch chat in
like 20. 17 yeah it was 2017 November 6/20/17 you said fuck
Gigi's. That was that's that's your
first message in. My in my twitch.
Chat from back in the day because I believe.

(16:54):
We just played, you said I. Was the Akuma player and so
yeah, I remember we, we, we played a bit, but I, I guess
like I didn't piece together that you were smash riddles for
a a while after that. But people in the Twitch chat
would inform me and then, you know, I would hear about your
success with the FGC characters,like, oh, OK, It kind of like
made sense. It was all coming together that

(17:15):
that that was. Crazy you pieced it all
together. Yeah, all those years.
Later. You're here now, man, it's it's
the journey has been insane. But yeah, so it's it's
interesting that you've been playing so much fighting games
from such an early age. It's like a different, you know,
it's a very different unique career path, I feel like from so
many people that you would see in the Smash community, which
really makes sense how it all culminated where you are now.

(17:36):
But when you're playing these, I'm curious about your Street
Fighter 5 experience when you'replaying that, like you, you got
in kind of at a rough time for. For Street Fighter.
What was your impression of Street Fighter Five at that time
from someone who you missed the Street Fighter 4 era?
You might not have been like, you know, biased against Street

(17:57):
Fighter Five in that sense. So I'm kind of curious how you
felt about Street Fighter Five at the time.
Well, I still like smash more atthe time for sure.
I'll just kind of play it like casually.
It was fun. I did go to a couple locals for
it. It was like a fun era,
especially since I was younger. Probably I don't know, I'm
trying to I'm like trying to remember cuz it was so long ago,

(18:17):
right Or that it was kind of long ago.
It was like I only played season1 and 2, which is OK, maybe
unfortunate but. Yeah, those are like the
roughest seasons, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I think eventually I kind of just got bored of the game
because, I don't know, at some point I just stopped.
I got like 600 hours, which isn't that much, and then I was

(18:41):
just like, yeah, I'm kind of bored.
I'm like, play something else. And, and at this time you're
playing Smash, right? And then I think Ultimate
releases in 2019. So that would.
Kind of make 20/18/20. 18 So that makes perfect sense for a
time to to pivot off right into focusing on ultimate.
I played, yeah, I played in like20/16/2017 and I just kind of
stopped. I actually played a lot of DVFZ.

(19:02):
Before OK. Before Ultimate came out and
that was what that game was, Bros.
A season 1, like season 1. Bardock, Vegeta, Goku, that's
you. That's a sick team.
The most season, the most seasonone team ever.
I'm getting sidetracked. But that early era, the UFC was
really cool. Like seeing like the storylines,

(19:24):
you know, like Summit Hook winning Summit, right?
Goichi Shit, yeah. So were you invested in the FGC
at this point? Because you're like, you're at
this point, I mean, we're getting close to where Smash
Ultimate's releasing, but you'replaying Street Fighter Five,
You're in my stream chat. You know about DBFC, you know
about the the DBFC streams and the competitive scene.

(19:46):
Like how are you getting exposedmore and more to the greater FGC
in the competitive space? And what is like your awareness
of it at this time 'cause you'reI think still at the time Smash
Force may be your main hobby andcompetitive game.
I mean, you're super yard but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
definitely still like my main hobby and passion, right?
Smash or like I would still see FGC content on like my social

(20:09):
media, right? So I'll just keep up through
like Twitter or, you know, Twitch or YouTube, right?
I still see the content because I still like invest in it,
right? But I wasn't like super, super
deep, right? My main focus was still smash,
but I would still like, you know, spectate from the
sidelines and like see what's going on and whatnot.
So I've been, I've been around. Right, So like you're, you're

(20:30):
watching Twitch, like I guess it's a bit different from other
people I've talked to on this show because like you're
younger, right? So like you're growing up, but.
This is like. Natural free like you watched
all this on twitch, all these all the tournaments like you
were. Were you watching Capcom
fighters at all? Like were you invested in like
the greater FGC tournament scenewatching Evo?

(20:51):
Obviously EVO, yeah, I would watch EVO, but I don't think I
would watch like every single pro tour.
I don't think I really kept up with that too much, right?
I literally grew up watching you.
We've told you this before, we're very strange.
I literally literally grow up watching you.
I know it might be weird seeing hearing someone from hearing

(21:11):
someone from trash talk. Have you ever heard this from
someone in this podcast? No.
The people. You.
Vaguely know who I am. Yeah, yeah.
I've been streaming for 10 years, So you're 22 right now,
right? Yes.
Wow, so I would have been 12. When I first.

(21:32):
Booted up OBS and streamed to Twitch.
Something like that. Like I think you had like what
like 70 viewers 2017 ish something like.
That I think 2017 I was crackingthe 200 maybe?
200, yeah. No, it was around there.
Street Fighter 4, late Street Fighter four.
I was like O70, like we're cooking, we're.

(21:54):
Cooking. We're cooking.
Yeah. So no, you you got in, you
started watching way back in theday.
That was pre YouTube era. So that was just.
Purely Twitch it was, it was like that was like back when you
were uploading clips of you likerobbing people with Ballrog Tap
or something. Like once a month, you know,
like YouTube was an afterthoughtand I would like manually edit
my own stuff after work. You know, it wasn't the focus

(22:16):
kind of how it is these days that that's back when you would
just play and stream on Twitch and then the other hardcore
fighting in players and Twitch heads would just find your
stream. So I'm guessing you were just
like browsing Twitch because youlike these games and other
people were playing them. And then like, that was kind of
how like you got connected with like the FTC community was just
through browsing Twitch. Yeah, wow, interesting Twitch.

(22:40):
But just like, you know, just keeping up, I guess, right?
In all forms of media. Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, it's it's it's interestingto see how someone so young can
just like gravitate towards thatspace.
And then years later, like you're a pro now.
Like you're actually, I think you're professional.
I think you count as a professional player.

(23:01):
I mean, it's a loose definition and it's still to this day in
the FTC, but you're definitely aprofessional player.
But I do want to touch back on that 2019 era because this is
where your career becomes a career, I would say, right?
Smash Ultimate releases late 2018, early 2019.
There's no Terry in the game yet, right?

(23:22):
Terry is one of the first DLC characters.
Who are you playing when Smash Ultimate drops?
I played, I played Richter, Belmont and Ken.
I played Ken when he came out, he was one of the last
characters revealed for like base game ultimate.
So I actually played Ken and my first local or like at the end

(23:43):
of my first local, and I beat myfriend who was like, he was like
#2 in the region behind like a top five player in the world
for, for Smash four. Yeah, I was still bouncing
school and whatnot. Right?
Stay in school, guys. They when you see school like is
this high school? Just high school, Yeah, not, not
like I'm not yeah, I'm not an adult at this point.

(24:05):
I'm like what 1516? Right, 1516.
Years old yeah stay in school guys but yeah I'm still trying
to balance out that I start travelling early 2019 I'm going
to I'm doing like 10 hour driveswith my friends across country
is. That working like who's drive

(24:26):
like so wait, you're still in high school.
You're this is pre Terry still. Pre Terry.
And you're driving, you're doing10 hour plus Rd. trips.
Yeah. Break that down like like mom,
dad, I'm going to get in a car and drive 10 hours to play Smash
Ultimate and you're staying across.
Like are you coming into the USA?
I'm going to Canada. I went, I went.

(24:46):
I went from like like Canada, like Bon Canada to my first out
of region America tournament wasin Maryland #2019.
OK. I literally just went up to my
dad and he's and I asked, hey dad, can I go?
Oh man, can I drive to America for this video game tournament?
I guess my grades were good at at the time or something, or I

(25:09):
was being a good kid because he just said like, yeah, sure,
that's fine. I was like, all right, let bet,
let's go. But who's driving?
Who's driving the kids? What's it was someone's mom?
My friend, my friend, my friend,my friend from Smash who I've
known for a while. Were they your age as well as a
little bit older like they had a?
Little bit older. OK.
And they wow, that's, that's a big thing.

(25:31):
Big deal. I mean, it was a lot of fun.
I'm not going to lie. It might sound crazy, but like
right now, I guess it is kind ofcrazy.
I guess it is kind of crazy, but.
That's what makes it fun, man. Like those.
That's what makes. It fun.
That's what makes it fun. Yeah.
No, it was. It was really, really good, man.
I always. I definitely look back at it
fondly. Right.
Playing like in person, meeting new people, improving like that.

(25:52):
That process is really somethinglike especially when you travel
like out of region for it. It's like one of the, I think
that's like one of the best experiences, right, Someone
could ever have with fighting games or, you know, this type of
game, whatever. Yeah.
How do you feel about that? Because one thing that's
interesting about Smash now is because the fact that online is
so ass, in a weird way, they've preserved that real OGFGC

(26:15):
culture, Yeah, which has been kind of lost to time due to the
ease of access with online rollback and all these online
tournaments that we have. That ease of access now with
traditional FTC games has gottena lot more people into the
scene. And also I think people gotten
way better because of it. I do think it actually has
improved the level of gameplay overall.

(26:37):
But I also recall an era where in the Street Fighter four days,
you had to go offline to get practice.
I had to grab my CRT, put my console and stick my backpack
and walk around and go to someone's house and play.
A new batch of players get new experiences.
Every tournament, people from different regions would come
over. You'd get new experiences and be
able to finally measure yourselfagainst somebody else because

(26:59):
you didn't know how good you were relative to that guy you
saw on stream in California or in New York right until those
few touch points would happen a couple times a year.
And so that was a very engaging and interesting experience to
have and you can share exactly and experiences.
Exactly. Exactly that.
Exactly. Right, but that's been lost to
traditional to see, but you got that through Smash and I think

(27:20):
that still exists like to this day, right.
Do you still to? Some to some extent, to some
extent, yes, I'm going to sound like a boomer, but that's like,
I think that is the best way. I think it's like that
experiencing that was like the best, one of the best times I've
had with fighting games or you know, or smash.
I still like getting better to online playing like tournaments.
And I think it's a great thing that we have.

(27:40):
And I honestly, I'd still preferit because I think like for the
greater good of like just overall, like the community,
it's probably better that we have like this amazing rollback
and like net code and whatnot, especially for like streaming
and shit. But I do, I definitely do miss
that. Like I definitely do.

(28:01):
I mean, we still, it's still, I mean, I went to, I literally
just went to France, right? I had that experience with the
Street Fighter like a couple weeks ago.
But having it like constantly with like locals and stuff and
whatnot, you know, always havingthat definitely do kind of miss
that right aspect. I think there's something to be
said for like going through a struggle together, which creates

(28:24):
a more unifying bond. Like everyone who is physically
there in that room went through some kind of struggle, some kind
of friction to actually show up and get their asses out of their
house and in there in person. So like I think that alone
creates like a bond. Whereas if you beat someone,
play someone on an online rankedonline tournament, it's like
there was no effort they went through really to even get

(28:47):
there. So and also you're not there in
person. I feel like people forget that,
like when you play ranked, I mean it happens to me too, but I
feel like when people play online fighting games, they
forget that the other person is like a human being.
That's cuz they're not, they're not, they're a semi truck
driving down the highway cuttingyou off and and driving insane.
You know what I mean? Like it's like a road rage of

(29:08):
that. Creatures.
They're they're creatures. Yeah, they're they're an
antagonistic force. They're not like a.
Human anymore. Yeah, they're an actual concept.
Compared to when you see them inperson, it's just a, it's a very
different vibe, I'd say. Yeah, it's, it's, it's
interesting talk. It's interesting talking about
the clash between those two differences, right?
Right. And it's interesting too,

(29:29):
because I think Smash, like I said before, really has
preserved that. And I think even prior to COVID
had a much stronger local culture.
And I think a huge part of that was, I mean, the games are more
popular as well. That's that's the number one
factor. And then the number 2 factor is
online being ass. And then I, I think those things
together created this force where you mentioned PR earlier.

(29:53):
There's so many different stepping stones and you know,
the, the peak, I think it's smash is so hard to reach.
People undersell I think in the FTC how skill based Smash is,
but you have the rungs of the ladder to climb at all levels.
Yeah, it took me like what, like7 years to reach the top level
right of Smash. Being like ranked top ten in the

(30:16):
world took me that long and seven years old child.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, it'll probably
it's not it's not easy, right, Definitely not easy.
It's actually really fucking hard and.
It's very consistent. It's a very consistent game.
Like across the the titles. It's it's far more consistent in
terms of placements than a traditional FGC title has been

(30:39):
since Street Fighter Five, I think so absolutely.
You know what compared to you know what compared to Street
Fighter Six, Yeah, I'd say so. Absolutely dude no.
Even in five it didn't. Maybe like there was eras like
with Punk and other players dominating, but Smash has always
been so consistent at top level from what I've seen.
Well, it helps that it helps that tournaments run first to

(31:00):
three for the most part. Yeah, that's another big, that's
another big culture difference that I think is really nice.
Well, for the Smash side. Yeah, I mean, I think in
general, yeah, there's a big culture difference.
I think in FGC tournaments, since it's always been about
getting everyone to play all thegames under one roof, no one

(31:23):
game like takes up too much time.
Yeah, it's a it's a lot more about logistics than competitive
consistency. Whereas I feel like in Smash,
it's like they treat it like a sport.
The amount of stats they have, the rankings, the way even the
content creators approach it, they're it's so much more
developed in that sense. And but I've always been looking

(31:43):
to the Smash community for yearsfor constant inspiration and how
we can improve our tournament scenes and how we cover and talk
about these things. And we're, and if you see, it's
an older community, but we're sounderdeveloped in that sense.
Still to this day, still to thisday, you're putting in, you're
putting in the work. Are you putting in the work?
I see you cover the storylines that are I try low key lost in
time sometimes. Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm

(32:05):
doing here, right? I feel like.
Yeah, exactly. I, I, it's been.
Lost. I feel like you know one thing
that everything needs to get better at compared to smash bod
preservation cause smash like they will upload every single at
least like VG bootcamp are like the big guys.
They they will upload like everysingle set individually.

(32:28):
Like no no one set gets lost to the to the twitch bod archives.
Bro I I tried searching up some sets for like UFA recently
right? Like they knew it.
The most recent Capcom pro Tour tournament, I couldn't find some
sets cuz they just aren't uploaded or I have to go through
the whole broadcast or somethinglike that.
And it's just like, the heck yeah, that's something I hope

(32:52):
gets better. Right, but I think I think that
that example speaks to the wholeecosystem where like everything
from for Smash community competitively is preserved at
all levels. Like what you're talking about
Also any regional local, I couldprobably look up every single
set from every week in the past 10 years.
And I can also then get the stats of every player who plays

(33:13):
in that local, their PR rankingsand all this stuff.
So I just think at all levels that that kind of culture is
there. And I think that's really
powerful because in the world oftraditional FGC, if you're not
first, you're last, kind of. And that's that's a huge it's a
problem culture difference that I have realized in this like

(33:36):
starting to come full time when like when I started to become a
like, you know, Street Fighter player full time.
Dude, first is everything in theFGC.
If you're not literally, if you're not first, you're last.
Like it's literally like like noone cares that you got fifth at
EVO, even though there's like 7000 people.
Like no one cares if you got fifth in Smash.

(33:57):
People not to not to rag on after you see, I think it's like
it's just how it is, right? But in Smash, if you get like
5th at like a tournament like that big, like people will like
celebrate that stuff, right? And after you see if you're not
first, like no one cares. Right.
And even if you're even if. You're first, you're still shit
if you didn't do it the right way.

(34:18):
I do feel like I do feel like the the smash community has
often like celebrated their players.
And I mean, I will probably get into I know you've been through
some difficulties being appreciated for what you bring
to the table. I've I've seen some discourse
around, you know, Kazuya being, you know, this, that in the
third so that that. Kind of.
Yeah, that kind of shit exists across all communities, but

(34:39):
there's no stepping stones even at the top level.
And then I love the PR system. I I've seen so many people
bemoan and complain about how itgets people emotional and it
causes debates and it stresses people out and feelings get
involved. However, to me, when I think
about that and you have a systemfor these, these smaller regions
where you can have a stepping stone that is realistic for

(35:02):
people to climb. Yeah, realistic.
Tomorrow, this year, I'm not going to be the top five in the
world, but maybe I can be top ten in my state.
Maybe I can be top five in my 1 local region.
Right. And people care about that a
lot. That motivates them to show up.
And motivates them to show up. And yeah, literally that's why
the local scenes are still alivetoday.

(35:23):
Like people still, you'll still care about it.
And you know what, for FGC, maybe it sounds stupid or
whatever, you know, you're thinking about rankings, blah,
blah. It's unhealthy.
It creates passion. It creates passion, it makes
people care, right? So I think that's more important
than just trying to be the, trying to be the absolute #1
best, like all the time, right? Because, you know, it's not

(35:45):
realistic for everybody. I think that's a very old head
mentality we have. I've heard tournament organizers
talk about yeah, I put the prizeonly for first place to light a
fire. Under your asses and motivates.
You that does nothing when you're doing that in a in a
scene where you have Punk and MENA Rd. entering your
tournaments, when you say, oh, the only reward is for first
what you what ends up translating to people's minds is

(36:07):
I'm just giving money to this guy at the top and I have zero
chance of even making like some incremental moves towards
getting to that position becauseit's too far away.
It's too like maybe they could get there one day, but you have
to provide. You have to light up the next
step like it has to be visible, the next progression to reaching
that that almost unfathomable goal of being the best in the

(36:32):
world. You got to know where to go from
where you currently are, and FGCdoes not provide that
whatsoever. I mean, you could have, I mean,
I guess you have online ranked that's but like, come on, your
Mr. Yeah, Mr. you know, the mostimportant thing ever.
But that's why I'm happy with Mr. System, right?
At least that to me is solving acommunity need because Mr. Now

(36:53):
actually means something. I think.
I think it actually has some relevancy.
In Street Fighter Five, your ranked number just went up
forever just based on how many hours you put in.
It had no basis and skill. It was just like you're a grind
amount of hours you put in. So now Mr. actually means
something. So I do feel like that has
replaced this or supplemented where we've been lacking this PR
system so people can go online building something.

(37:14):
I reached 1700, I reached 1800. I peaked at 1900.
Now I'm here, I can try to average here.
Gives people something to work, to work towards.
And you know, like when I see when I see like I still see on
my For you page on Twitter, likerandom Japanese Street Fighter,
dude, it's so big in Japan. By the way, this is yeah, that's
off topic. But I would see like random

(37:35):
players just celebrate getting really happy, getting like 1700
or like Grandmaster. I'm like, if you think from like
their perspective, they're probably like, so you know, it's
like it's like getting PR. It's like it's like it's a
realistic goal that people can get and like celebrate and have
fun with. Not everything is just about
being the absolute best, right? Like, you know, if you think

(37:57):
about it really from like the whole community perspective,
right? And I think that's cool.
I think, I think, I think that giving something people can
celebrate, even if it doesn't matter, it can still give
something to care about, right? Right.
So I don't know how to word it properly, but like give
something that people can be passionate.
About right. And that that to me, that's what

(38:18):
matters. Yeah, this whole thing at the
end of the day, right? This whole thing, this whole
everything, yeah. Yeah.
This whole thing we're in only matters because we think it
does. Yeah.
Literally. If not, if tomorrow we, all of
us woke up in the FGC and go I don't care.
Like it's over. That's it.

(38:40):
It's literally over. The whole industry collapses.
They're all driven by just passion for this.
Right, right. The reason people have careers
and are able to focus on a full time and then all this, it all
stems from the core concept of us caring about this.
So I would never brush off thosestepping stones and like, you
know, try to say, oh, who cares if you got your little

(39:01):
milestone? Who?
That's not important. No, every bit of it is important
because it all builds up towardsus trying to, you know,
celebrate the climb to the top and appreciate the growth
process that all the players go through and the passion.
And then we get to be amazed by people who have put in that much
work to be at that level and be backfired by that all stems from

(39:23):
us caring. So anyone trying to anyone
listen to this like your little milestones, they matter.
They they matter so much becausethis whole thing is built upon
millions of us, millions of those milestone moments across
everyone in the FGC. So I always celebrate the Smash
community for doing that and. Yeah, I still to this day, like
even after I quit competitively,I do it.

(39:47):
I definitely do miss like I lovethe FGC, don't get me wrong, but
I definitely do miss like my friends in the smash community
where I've like grown up, grown up with, you know, built my life
around since I was like a littlekid, right?
I actually do miss like all the peers cuz at the end of the day,
we're all human, right? That's kind of the.

(40:10):
A little bit of the beauty of fighting games is that we're all
just human. Again, it goes back to your
conversation that we all just care.
We all just care a lot about this one thing.
It all brings us together, right?
That is also something that is connected with Smash and FGC is
that they both have that common similarity.
Like, I think the day we're all just people caring about this

(40:30):
one thing. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, it's just cool. It's just, it's just cool.
You got your homies that you're in the trenches with, right?
Like these are the people that like you would go to the
tournaments, maybe you'd have a good one, but you know, more
often than not, for everybody, you have a bad one.
That's just the reality of it. And then?
At the end of the day, you're still.
You're with your homies going through it.
You know you're still playing. Have fun, right?

(40:53):
And then you get dinner and everybody.
Right, commiserate talk about itlike, dude, I can't do this
anymore. I got my ass beat.
Oh man, you can do it again. We just got to work harder.
You know, like you have those like bonding moments through the
struggle and I think that reallyunites people for sure.
So Speaking of this struggle, yeah, 2019 you played a little
bit with Ken and I'm very interested in the moment like

(41:14):
Terry comes out because I would argue you're maybe the best
Terry player on the planet. This today for Street Fighter
Six Street Fighter, maybe you'reup there regardless, if you
want, you're up there, but I would say you're up there.
I I I'd also say that as I say that.
OK. Thank you.
Thank. You for being, I'll say, I'll
say, I'll say I'm up there. I'll say I'm up there.

(41:35):
You're definitely up there. I do think there are some
Terry's that are better than well, for one, I think Lashar's
the best Terry. I mean that I don't know if that
really counts because Lashar, but like he plays Terry a lot
and he's the best like player that plays Terry for being for
being honest. And then it's Kintio, you know,
the Japanese, Terry, the vegetarian, Japan, very
innovative, very creative. And then it's Boost, I think.

(41:58):
Boost is not like. That's like, that's my goat and
that's me. OK, very fair.
Very. Fair, I'm trying to be I'm just
I'm not trying to I, I understand like you got to have
confidence in this, in this industry, right?
And I like being confident because it gets and you know
what, it's good to be confident because it's good to go in with

(42:19):
that mindset of of, you know, I can beat anybody.
I could be the best or whatever and I still have that, but I
also like being realistic I guess, right?
No, that's interesting. I I do think I have to wear like
2 hats and, and, and kind of swap them out.
Like when you're in in bracket, you got to be a little
delusional because otherwise, like if you're humbling

(42:42):
yourself, you go up against thatplayer who's the favorite to
win, has more legacy. Yeah, you're, you're kind of
selling yourself short and then you're you're shooting yourself
in the foot and you're saying I can't win like.
Oh, I mean, me going to EWC at the time was kind of delusional,
right? But you got you like before the
term. But yeah, you got to be and
somehow made it work. But yeah, anyways, going back,
going back to your topic of Smash, Smash Terry, I don't

(43:06):
know. When Terry came out, I was just
really excited. Obviously I was just excited
because I was like, wow, a new fighting game character and I
just played them a lot. I was winning a lot in my like
own region going through my my school year, right?
I think it was like my junior year and then COVID happens and
then the world ends and then theworld ends.
You're in high school when COVIDhits.

(43:27):
Oh God, yeah, that. Was Yeah.
Wow. So bad bro.
So I mean, like kind of weird because COVID kind of gave me my
career in a sense because I started streaming because of it.
I started streaming in early 2020 because it wasn't shit to
do. Like, you know, and that's,

(43:51):
that's still do it to this day, right?
But yeah, I know it was definitely a, an era, especially
when you're growing up as like ateenager in that environment,
you're just shut. You're just like, you know,
you're just inside all the time in like 1 of your most

(44:11):
developmental years. Definitely, definitely an
experience. And I did get better.
I, I mean, even like, I, I wonder if I would be like a
super top player if COVID never happened.
You know, I guess, I guess a lotof things would be different if
COVID never happened, right? Like we probably wouldn't be,
I'm talking right now, maybe I don't know, maybe like or

(44:34):
everything might be different, you know, because I had a lot of
time on my hands just to like play the game right, just to get
better. I still played even through the
shit ass delayed net code, I still played a lot and I got
better. That was the trend for like aw
man the COVID was. I went through my senior year

(44:58):
during COVID bro. Does that even count for school?
Like, yeah, just as a. Year.
It was weird. Senior year is supposed to be
for high school. I feel like such an.
Developmental fun. And kind of like happy, but also
a bit sad. It's like a such a pivotal

(45:18):
moment in your life. Like these people you've been
with through four years, your your, your group of in person
friends like that you're reaching the end of that
journey. And then everyone goes off their
separate ways. Like you keep in contact with
some of them, but it's like, youknow, it's the end of a journey
and that got cut short a whole year.
Too soon. I didn't have nowhere, I didn't
have a problem. I didn't have a graduation.

(45:39):
I didn't get none of that dude. Or like it was just, it was
weird like in Ontario, like sometimes, some days the school
would be in person and then the COVID numbers would like rise up
and then it would be like, you know, online another day.
And it's just like, it was just weird.
Wow, do you do you have it was go ahead, go ahead.

(46:00):
I was just going to say it was obviously harder to, I guess,
socially connect with, you know,your peers when you're, you
obviously like distance, you're you're all messed up, right?
That's just how it was. That's just how it was, right?
So during that time I definitelywas more, I mean, I still like

(46:22):
socialize with my like my normaldeep friend group, right?
But I think it also kind of led to everyone being more online,
right? And like me included, you know,
that's just how it was. Like, I think naturally that's
just, I mean, everyone was forced to do that, right?

(46:43):
So it was definitely just weird like growing up like that.
But also I also streamed a lot during that time.
So it kind of led me up to whereI am now.
Sorry, what were you going to say?
I was going to ask, did you everhave a sense of like finishing
like finality conclusion to yourhigh school era?
Because one of my recurring nightmares is I wake up and I

(47:06):
have a a college course that I forgot about and I never.
Got my degree. Like, I have this once a month.
I'll I'll wake up and feel like,uh oh, I forgot to go to my
class for the past seven years. I'm not going.
To get my degree, you know, I still have dreams of like my
math teacher. I still have, I still have
dreams of going to math class in, in fucking high school.

(47:26):
Like sometimes I was just, it'd be like you'd say, like
something that I'll, I'll get worried about.
I'm like, Oh my God, I fucked up.
God damn it dude, I forgot to. Wait class this whole year.
Yeah, yeah. And then I wait and then I wake
up. I'm like, wait, I'm a full time
Street Fighter player, what am Idoing?
That's why I think, yeah, I wakeup.
I have dreams where I'm like, oh, you got to go back to to

(47:47):
college to finish this one class.
And I'm like, this is crazy. I've been working.
Like I, I, I swear. To you like, I don't need to
like enough. You got to go all the way back,
go back to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It messes up with your whole sense of like finality and
conclusion. I feel like just
psychologically. There's something I didn't have
any. Yeah.
It was just a really weird time,'cause I mean, there were no,

(48:08):
there were no vaccines until like what, middle of 2021, like
early 21, something like that. Like a year and a half later.
Basically like we weren't able to socialize or do anything
really. Like again, no problem, no
graduation, no sense of finale, I guess, right?
So that like arc of my life, anybody born in like 2003, 2002,

(48:35):
like probably went through like that's that's similar type of
era. So.
For you, you were, do you feel like Smash was kind of just
filling that void for a while, like.
I guess, I guess so that's what you grabbed.
Whether whether whether that's agood or bad thing, I'll, you
know that I'll leave that up to you.
But but it's just how it's just how it's just how it was just

(48:58):
turned out to be, right because soon.
After that, you started to see like your most career success or
your career began to form, I guess after that era, because I
mean, also you're, you're graduating high school, you're
also getting more practice in and then you start to get your
best results. I think 2022 and beyond, right?
Yeah, so I was playing Terry, right?

(49:18):
I was still playing Terry this whole time.
And then middle of 2021, Kazia comes out, Ozzy comes out, and
at the time people don't think he's really that good because,
you know, he's really slow. He has all these complex weird
movement stuff inputs, like people didn't really know what
his cobbles looked like, how they really play them in neutral

(49:39):
and whatnot. But I just play them because I
was like, oh, cool, new fightingcharacter, right?
And then I don't know if you remember, but I went to the
first Smash Ultimate Summit thatafter like COVID, right?
I was still one of the best tournaments I've ever been to in
my entire life. Riff Summit.
I love that tournament series. Yeah.
Amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, I started playing

(50:00):
Kazia a little bit and then did OK, but, you know, still trying
to improve. And people didn't really know
what this character was capable of at the time.
Shortly after that tournament. That was like summer of 2021.
I go to, I go to university, I go to school again for I went to
University of Toronto for business, business management

(50:23):
and it sucked ass because it wasstill online.
You know, I went to a college, you know, I moved into a college
dorm just to have online classesstill.
Like what am I doing with my life?
Like what? Like what?
What am I doing? When I was just I was just

(50:44):
sitting in my because it was like, I was like sharing a dorm
with like three other people, but I had my own room.
But the but the room was like maybe the the whole room was
just, I don't even it like barely fit a bedroom.
It barely fit a bed, you know, like right.
And I was just, I was just sitting in this small ass table
just looking at my online class.I was just like, why am I?

(51:07):
Why am I? But like, it was weird because
yeah, I know I, I, I never got areal university experience
either, or college experience. You were robbed of that.
Like the dorm. Having a dorm that only fits
your bed and a small little table is normally part of the
experience, but that's because you're getting.
You go out, you're going to the classes.

(51:28):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're getting the full
university and usually the universities are just just big
open area, tons of lecture hallsand, you know, tons of places to
organically meet people of your age and similar interests and
and also but varied backgrounds.And you're not, you're not
supposed to be in that door, butyou're just to wake up and get
out. That's how you're supposed to
live that experience and. You were wrong and I was.

(51:51):
I was not able to get out. Yeah, so that's how it was, but
it just sucked. If you can imagine, I was still
trying to. It is weird because I was still
trying to balance this Smash stuff alongside streaming,
alongside school, alongside occasionally traveling to A
tournament, right? Right.

(52:11):
So it was just a lot to deal with.
Yeah. So eventually a constant thought
that I have is that eventually maybe I'd like to go back and
actually have the real experience, right.
It's just a weird dilemma for mebecause I'm so deep in this
fighting game bullshit like like, like I'm so deep in this.

(52:35):
I'm like, I'm playing Street Fighter, I'm traveling in
tournaments, I'm streaming, I'm making, I'm trying to make
YouTube content. Right, right.
You know, so this, you know, I really just want to give it my
all, especially since a new smash might come out whenever
like that's, that's, that's alsoa constant thought that I have
is like, cuz the game dude, Ultimate's like 7 years old.

(52:56):
Yeah, or it's going, it's going to be 7 years old and like a new
one could just come out. And that just might be, I don't
know, that's might be crazy. Obviously still Street Fighter 6
is my main like passion and likefocus right now.
But you know. You got roots.
In smash man, I'm too I'm too deep in this, I'm too deep in
this but but like, but I know the option is there and it's

(53:18):
never too late. So don't don't let this
discourage you from I'm going toschool.
At least for education, it's never too late.
I mean, I do feel, you know, I, I feel sorry for you that you
had that experience, Rob, because being there at that age
is, is a different experience, right?
Like just to be able to socialize and just be on your
own in a sort of controlled environment.

(53:41):
Like, yeah, you're living on your own, but not really.
It's kind of like summer camp for like, for, for 18 through
2020 year olds, like 21 year olds.
So it's a different experience. So that is this the whole
generation because of COVID was really robbed of, I think an
important milestone. But as far as like your
professional life and your own education, that's definitely
never too late. Like you can always, if, if you

(54:03):
want to pursue something, you can, you can make that pivot.
So I, I, if I were in your position, I wouldn't be
concerned about that. In that sense, if you feel like
it's right for you to pursue an education, to pivot to something
else, you can do it. And it'll have to be at a time
where you feel personally motivated to do so, right?
Right. So if if you feel like you're in

(54:24):
it to be the best in the world at this thing right now, yeah,
then that's what you're in it for.
And when the time. Comes if you want to be the best
in the world. That's what I'm here for.
You know, I literally just traveled to France.
You've been doing it in my own pocket, out of my own pocket.
Right. And I got a pretty OK result.
Not not bad. But pretty pretty decent result.
But, but you were traveling on liquids time for a while and I

(54:47):
would say that's because, you know, the Kazuya came out, you
started cooking. And then even on your, your
smash wiki, they, they mentionedriddles.
The old the first player to win a a major with solo Kazuya.
You know, like it's, it's right there, like Bam, the big House
2022 first place riddles. That was that was, I mean, I
guess I'll tell you everything that led up to it, right?

(55:09):
So I was in this shitty dorm, right?
And then early 2022, I moved to my friend's basement.
Like it had like a real room andeverything.
And I just say fuck it. And it just started to become
full time like Smash, like full time content creator traveling
right up there on YouTube, doingTwitch streaming.
And it's growing slowly and slowly.

(55:30):
And then a couple tournaments happened.
Collision 2022 was like my firstbreakout, I'd say my first top 8
for a Smash tournament. I got 4th which is pretty funny
because UFA was like my first open major, like top eight
Street Fighter. I also got 4th.
I have a weird 4th is like my weird like cursed placement I'd

(55:50):
get. I'd just get 4th a lot.
I don't know why maybe. Blessed.
Maybe. Blessed.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's. Better than like that's better
than 97th but but but yeah, no, I just started getting better
Then Lord H box comes in and helps me get on liquid and I was
on liquid for good like 2-3 years.
It was pretty wonderful. I'm not, I'm not gonna lie,

(56:12):
being sponsor is pretty wonderful, but I, I definitely
look back at it like fondly, youknow, I don't have any regrets
and whatnot. They hit you up at.
That time. So H Box, you know, he, I don't
know if he was part owner of Liquid back then or not, I
think. He was.
I think he was. So he has a lot of sway, I'm
assuming in in the sponsorships and how these deals go.
He did. Were you approached after the

(56:34):
big house? Like my timeline that I saw is
is. It was early like 2022, OK, like
middle early 2022, something like that.
So you were on Team Liquid at the Big House?
Yeah. OK, Well, they shout out Sage
Box man, he's scouting good. Yeah.
I mean, shots to them, you know,I brought home the goals.

(56:55):
Very, very fond memories. But yeah, winning everything
leading up to that was just, youknow, a bunch of tournaments,
you know, some decent placements, some failures,
right? As any competitor who really
gives them really gives their all in this journey.
You know you're going to have ups and downs, right?

(57:15):
Progress isn't linear, of course, but you do get better.
Like that's something that's magical about human beings is
that no matter what, like it goes back.
I remember watching a video fromyou about how you say, like
you're talking about how people like can't get master rank in
Street Fighter, right? Or like some people the the
mental belief of that you can't improve.

(57:35):
No, that's that's like everyone improves like like it's gonna it
might some for some people, I'd be much slower than others.
But if you do put in the work and your and your mind is like
guided in the right place, like you will improve, right, If you
just put in the work, right. So it goes back to the the
topic, right. I started getting a lot better
with Kosya. People started in general

(57:56):
getting a lot better with Kosya,right?
This is the nature of his character, very execution heavy,
movement heavy, but he also killed, he kind of kills you in
one hit if you, if you know his combos well and you have the
execution and you know, like thesituations correctly.
And with time, people started figuring it out.
He's very cheap. But like, you know, at the time

(58:17):
it was like still new and stuff and people like advancing the
meta. So I just started to get, I just
started, I don't know, somethingjust kind of clicked middle of
2022 and I won my first major and that was a pretty crazy time
in my life. You're cooking for a while.
You also got a first at Collision 2023 and.
Yeah, that was early 2023. Yeah, so you're just, you're

(58:40):
really coming into your own in the Smash community and you're
pushing the meta with Kazia. I I did see some people start to
complain after a certain point. I saw, you know, yeah.
I was seeing the Smash community's praises earlier, but
I definitely saw. I see.
The Twitter discourse about people, definitely It's not all
sunshine and rainbows. They know how to.
Complain man, they know how to complain about the.

(59:02):
Characters, it's definitely not perfect, definitely some issues
still. So was that.
Was that interesting? For you, I feel like that, maybe
I'm wrong, but I feel like that might have been the first time
we're you were the target of character discourse in a way,
because you were driving the meta with this character and
starting to get wins and and bigplacements with Kazia.
And then what trail the the lagging response was, wait a

(59:25):
minute, this character's broken and sheep and anyone who wins
with this character is carried as well, right?
Like was that interesting for you to go through?
What was that like? To a small, to a very small
extent. Not not not very small, but like
to a small extent. I've experienced this with
Street Fighter as well, but the better you get at something and
the more results you have, there's going to be people who

(59:46):
support you, but there's also going to be more haters.
This is a universal rule in likemaybe just life.
Like the bigger you get at something, the more people are
going to pray for your downfall as well.
So I also like obviously when I started getting pretty good
results of Smash, there's also some haters going like whatever

(01:00:07):
the fuck, you know, you're carried and stuff like this,
like I hate this guy. Right, and that's just it was
really it's definitely shocking at first, but at a certain point
I just like come to accept it because at the end of the day,
the people who support you will over shadow that, you know, if
you don't just focus on negativeand still even the Street

(01:00:27):
Fighter, like I, I, I, I look atit, you know, twitch ads or some
haters, right? I mean, this is normal for like
a lot of people, right? But you know, when you when you
rise up, it can be more people praying for your downfall.
But you know, also there's also the supporters still so bounces
out. Yeah, right.
Yeah. It's definitely interesting to
think about. Yeah, this is I.

(01:00:49):
Think I think you can. Relate as well, probably.
Oh. Yeah, of course, of course yeah
when I when I got my top eights and premieres with Ballrog, I
mean he was pretty broken at thetime, but you know like it was
shocking at first cuz I was the string monster nobody for so
long and then I. I can not stay guys that they're
talking. And now they're all talking shit
about me and I'm like, not one of you guys.
Like what? We're on the same team here, you

(01:01:10):
know what I mean? Like.
What? Happened.
But, you know, that's, that's just how it is.
But I I think that experience isalways kind of jarring at first,
especially. Yeah, exactly if.
You start getting that success in the 2017 and beyond era, like
the streaming and content creation and social media era
versus before. I feel like you kind of make
those waves and people accept it's you don't make shock waves

(01:01:34):
in social media. Back then it didn't exist, but
now whenever you have your come up in the social media era, it's
a completely different reaction,especially on Twitch Chat live
first time. Oh, I don't know who you are
there for. Whatever you did to get here, to
beat favorites, to get here, you're a scrub and you're
carried and it's the result of XY or Z.
The game's bad, whatever. Like, there's so many, so many
reasons why you're here and you don't belong here other than,

(01:01:57):
hey, baby. On that day, they were just a
better player and they've been putting in work for a long time.
So that that never ends. Shimita definitely has its its
faults. It has its good parts, but it
has its faults. I don't know, it might might
sound like a boomer for saying this, but like, you know, it can
be crazy. And how it like shaped up the

(01:02:18):
fighting game community or like,you know, I mean, this is a this
is a discourse that has been around for who knows how long,
right? Like whether or not social media
is good or bad. Yeah, it's good and bad things.
But it's definitely shaped up the FTC, I think, and smash
community. Yeah.
For better or worse. Yeah.

(01:02:40):
Yeah, it can be a big deterrent to people like what's his name,
Ecola, the Ecola, the C player. Like, you know, I've seen
everyone going after him for so long and young kid doing work,
being the best player he can be and and.
He's a really nice guy too. He's a really nice guy.
People hate him, right, Because he plays, he's the best or he

(01:03:00):
won't. He's not the best right now,
but. Yeah, he was winning with Steve
and Steve is broken, therefore you're a bad person for playing
him. And it's.
Bad for yeah, they take it really personal.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's it's definitely the ugly side of it
all. And any competitors found
successes had to deal with that to some degree.
Yes, yeah. It's funny how this you had to
go through it twice now. Not it's not not as bad with

(01:03:23):
Street Fighter. I'll give you guys credit.
I'll give you guys credit with that.
You guys aren't crazy. You guys aren't as crazy with
the character hate I would say. Well, I think it's also the
nature. But there's definitely still
exists. Yeah, you're.
Doing it with Terry right now. Who is more respected like if
you were? Yeah, if I played like my, my or
M Bison. Or you know what?

(01:03:43):
I. Mean bison then, and there's
not. Maybe the conversation might be
a little different. Yeah, definitely different.
And yeah, I think Street Fighter5 was the last game where we had
those kind of targets. I think like ball rug season 2,
Abigail season 3, you know what I mean?
Like there's it depends on the era and the balance of the game
at that time, how much how much you get for it.

(01:04:04):
But yeah, I want to get back to like the 2023 era when Street
Fighter Six finally comes out because you're still on Liquid
Smash is still it's on still thecome up.
I would almost say like getting out of COVID.
And no, you don't think. So I would say, I would say it
stopped when our circuits died. Which that.
Was it was on the come up? Was that 20 was on the come up?

(01:04:26):
But when, you know, when we had the remember the Panda Smash
World Tour, then it all explodedfor some bullshit reason, right?
We were having some sort of future.
And then after, I'd say after 2022, it kind of just the
problem with Smash right now is that like, it's not dead.

(01:04:46):
It's not dying. Those are extreme words, but
it's not growing right now. I would say I don't think it's
growing. Meanwhile, I think Street
Fighter 6 is like kind of growing, at least in Japan.
At least in Japan. At least in Japan.
There's signs of growth beyond just the initial release boom
and then shrink. It's it's actually growing in
Japan, which. Is Smash, it's just like on like

(01:05:07):
a just very slight decline downward and decline, I'd say in
terms of like viewership entrance.
But like, I mean, there's still people who care which I that's,
that's goes by the conversation where I was like, you know, I
still really respect people who are still really, really
passionate and I think that's really cool.
But yeah, right now, I mean, it's just, I think it's just

(01:05:28):
natural because of how the game,you know, it's just getting old,
right? Yeah, getting more stable and
then maybe the meta sun is entertaining.
There has been, there hasn't been a patch since early 2021,
right? No, early 2022 I think.
Yeah, it hasn't been a patch since then.
So it's like. It is what?
It is, yeah. We're in, We're in.
It's almost the end of 2025. That's just how, which is how

(01:05:52):
the cookie crumbles. But.
Right. Yeah.
I mean, we'll see what the future, you'll see what 2026
looks like, I don't know. One thing I noticed that was
interesting about this is, you know, I, I don't follow every
Smash tournament, but I definitely have always been a
spectator or a fan. And I'm a little bit more of a
Melee head than an Ultimate head.
But I watch a lot of these events, right, based on the
scale of the production and the energy of the crowd and how big

(01:06:16):
the show is. When I was digging through your
results to do a little bit of research here, I was a little
bit surprised by the number of entrants for these events
because they're on like the 400 to 600 range.
And I mean, some of them were big.
Like some of them were cracking 1000, like really big.
But I never would have thought a400 man tournament would look

(01:06:39):
like that. What?
Do you mean? In terms of the crowd, the size,
the energy from the players, theproduction and the number of
viewers on Twitch, I feel like there's a lot more fan
spectating Smash relative to theplayer count compared to FGC
events. FGC events for similar entrance

(01:07:00):
will actually have far less viewers and far less crowd
participation and like less fan energy and fan participation.
Where in Smash is like, there's a lot of bigs, yeah, but there's
but they're not. It's just a really popular.
They're not entering the tournament as much.
For a 400 man tournament, there's that many spectators.
That's a that's a cultural divide, I think, between.
Special if you see casual audience, right, more of a

(01:07:23):
casual audience in in smash for sure, and that's can be a
strength and can also be I mean like it's mostly a strength.
I'd say it's mostly overall a good thing, but obviously with
more, I don't know if you noticed, but if if a comedian
has like a lot more casual players, it can also lead to
more toxicity potentially. Yeah.

(01:07:44):
Like I don't mean to rag on specific fighting games, but
like with Tekken, I played Tekken for a while a little bit,
but that game also has a huge casual crowd.
But it can also be like kind of crazy, you know, like it can
just it can just lead to craziness.
I don't know, the more the more casuals I notice if that

(01:08:05):
community has same with smash, right?
Street Fighter is a very hardcore community.
That's what I noticed. OK, very there, there are still
casuals and there's still like alot, right?
I noticed it's like it's like the the culture is very it's
very hardcore. I don't know how to describe it.
It's like very, you know, serious.
That makes sense. Very, again, going gunning to be

(01:08:26):
the best and what not, you know,but that's just, I think that's
just natural with the level of competition that Street Fighter
has as well. Probably, but it also seems to
me like there's less fans that don't enter the bracket in
Street Fighter. Like to me, the, the people
spectating, it's an exaggeration, but obviously
there's a lot of people, especially like the Evo and the,
the bigger events, there's a lotof people spectating who didn't

(01:08:48):
enter, but there's a higher percentage of the people in the
stands watching were in the bracket.
You know what I mean? Like they were, they're not just
there spectating, they're also entering and they're playing the
tournament as well. Whereas like smash, I was so
shocked to see there's thousands, there's 10s of
thousands of people watching. There's there's hundreds and
hundreds of people in the crowd more than the players in the
bracket, which is like very surprising to me.

(01:09:10):
And but I agree with your assessment about it creating
this this divide and potential toxicity because I feel like
when everyone is aware, you at least enter the brack and go oh,
and two, like you're part of it and and then therefore the
people who are there later in the top 8, like you were
connected to them by some. Way you were you.

(01:09:31):
Had a connection there and therefore they're humanized.
And also you kind of respect what they did a bit more because
you know, you get by to that tournament.
You can't. You're going to be real silly
talking shit about the guy who'snow in grand finals, right?
Yeah, you're talking shit. You went Owen, too.
Like, come on. Like, I mean.
I still say there's there's a decent amount of I'd still say a
lot of people like enter at least casually, like, you know,

(01:09:57):
in the bracket, but there definitely are more like overall
spectators probably. Yeah, I think the viewership
numbers are, I'm really like shocked by how.
Yeah, that those. Are like a 400 man tournament
and and Street Fighter generallywouldn't get that much
viewership is is more what I'm getting at.
It's a little bit different depending on the tour now
because I think some events likeeven the UFA was like very dense
in terms of top level talent anddidn't have.

(01:10:18):
As much interest, it's a pretty low key tournament.
There's only like 300 people. Right, right.
At least for Street Fighter 300,people there were gunning for
Capcom Cup. Yeah, like you're, you're
straight to the races. So it's a little different.
It depends. But interesting assessment of
the community. So I'm curious now.
Street Fighter 6 comes out, I remember you're you're grinding

(01:10:40):
hard. And Street Fighter Six came out.
We played a bit. You're playing that Luke, you
know? You're grinding.
I remember that. Customs.
I remember. You're like, actually JP.
Yeah, JP. My season, Luke.
We're we're playing some top tier back then, you know, pretty
good characters to pick. I fucking miss that shit
anyways. So, like, what was your thought
process when Street Fighter Six released?

(01:11:01):
Are you just playing for fun or was there some point where
you're like, maybe I'll like really trying this game?
Like what was going through yourmind at the time?
Well, it was weird because, well, at the time when I first
started playing it, obviously itwas like mostly like for fun
thing like, oh, this might be a cool game to stream and like,

(01:11:21):
maybe I'm all right at it. That was OK.
You know, I got Master quickly, but obviously that's not, yeah,
you know, close to like super top level entering some online
tournaments. And I was like very, I was like
very for a while, I'd say, but I'll just play for fun.
Slowly you start seeing yourselfget better.
But for a long time it was just kind of like a for fun thing.

(01:11:44):
Like it was weird. I would sometimes shift my focus
to like, all right, let's play some Street Fighter.
And then another month I'd be like, all right, let's just play
smash because I'm still like sign on to liquid and stuff,
right. So it was like this weird, like
back and forth type of focus thing, which I wouldn't suggest,
but that's just how that's just how it was.
I don't know. But my goals as Street Fighter
were like weird for the first like year.

(01:12:05):
I just kind of like played. I just went to I I got I would
occasionally enter. I didn't.
I wasn't, definitely wasn't giving it my all per SE.
And then everything kind of changed when Terry got revealed.
Oh, OK. When that guy got revealed and
you could probably go back to myYouTube and see my reaction to
that. I don't remember the last time I

(01:12:28):
really excited for like some sort of media compared to you
know, I don't remember the last time I got that hype for
something. After that, I started carrying a
lot, a lot more like I tried. I was like, OK, let me try to
get as good as possible fundamentally.
So I'd say like starting in 2024, I started to focus a
little bit more because, you know, that happened.

(01:12:50):
And I was just like, you know, Street Fighter 6 was still like,
I mean, it's still due to this day.
But like at the time, you know, it was only the second year,
right? Like season 2 or something like
that. And I'll still playing Luke cuz
I just, I, I mean, to this day, I still love Luke.
That's still one of my, I know, I know he gets a lot of Flack,
but I, I love Luke. That was one of my definitely

(01:13:12):
one of my favorite Street Fighter characters ever.
But yeah, still playing, still still was like learning the game
with him, trying to get better and I was getting better.
I wasn't at that like level per SE.
I got like what, 97th at Evo or something.
But you know, still still like trying to get better, right,
Right. Still grinding, still like
trying to balance Smash as well.And I was OK, I did.

(01:13:33):
But you can tell that it's just not like a sustainable, I don't
know, it's really, it's just really weird bouncing 2 games.
I wouldn't. Yeah, yeah, Was your.
It's really hard. Was your passion?
So first of all, 97th at EVO outof 7000 players?
Just for context, right? Like.
It's like 5000 or something likethat.
No, but was it this 2023 or 2020?

(01:13:53):
Four, you're talking about 24. OK, OK, sure. 23 I got like
129th. That's still out of 7000.
So I just want to give context like even with your side project
here at the time, like that's still, it's not world class
professional. I mean, you probably tied with
some or beat outplay some world class professionals at the time,
just just to give the scale likethe competition.

(01:14:14):
How not, I don't want to say random, but how volatile it can
be. First A2 giant tournament like
that. How the brackets line up.
That's those are still like impressive placements for anyone
who cares about Street Fighter. If you're like, this isn't your
career, like, Oh man, I got 128th out of 7000.
Like that's kind of that's stillpretty big.
But so are you feeling right nowlike your passion for smash is

(01:14:37):
dwindling or like you're drive like you're you're you're
splitting your attention? Is it like you're?
Definitely more passion about Street Fighter.
OK, but. You felt a little obligation
maybe to smash like that is yourbread and butter.
That is like what you're signed for.
I'd say I'd say so, but you know, I was definitely, my
passion was definitely leaning more towards Street Fighter.

(01:14:59):
It was also still just newer at the time.
Did did you talk to Team Liquid about this at all or did that?
Was there any? Conversation.
Yeah. No, they helped me.
They helped me go yeah, they helped me go to some tournaments
actually. OK, so they helped me go to
like. Hey, I'm going to try some
Street Fighter 6. Yeah, they actually helped me a
lot. They they helped me go to like
Evo, they helped me go to Dream City.
I was there, remember we saw each other and also East Coast

(01:15:23):
Throwdown. They helped me go to those
tournaments and you know, I appreciate them a lot for that.
I didn't do amazing. I didn't do amazing at those
tournaments, but like, you know,it builds, it helps you.
Every tournament is like a stepping stone to getting
better, right at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, that's just how it is.
And that's how a weird thing with me is that I tend to, I

(01:15:44):
tend to feel a lot of improvement after an after like
an offline tournament, like Major, after like a weekend of
just just grinding, like with a bunch of sweaty people, you
know, just for me personally, I tend to get a lot better from
that. That's just how it's always been
for like, since Smash at least. And I think there's some like
osmosis, like through the air, just like being around other

(01:16:06):
people who care. I think it just reinvigorates
you in that sense. Like even if you don't directly
improve immediately, you have, Ithink the mental refresh and
stamina to keep going. It's, it's definitely a good
mental reset. Like, all right, there's other
people who care and are as crazyas I am about this thing.
Let's keep going. I I think that's super important
than just playing online forever.

(01:16:28):
Yeah, I mean, but I was getting better, you know, just kept
playing. And then eventually Terry comes
out September. It's been like a has it been a
year? It's been about a year, I
believe, yeah. It's been one year.
Oh my God, dude. Doesn't time just keep going
faster like every. Oh yeah.
It's going to get worse and worse, man.
It's. Going to get worse.

(01:16:48):
It's. Going to get worse and worse,
don't worry. And worse.
Bro, how is it already like almost October of 2025, Right?
Like, why is the time going so fast these days?
What the hell? It's already been a year since
Terry came out. Yeah, it's because you.
Got your guy now? Yeah.
You said you were you were popping off when he was
released. I'm kind of curious because it's
like why is Terry so like your character?

(01:17:11):
Why? Why is it Terry?
Cuz you don't mean I played a lot of Terry in Smash, but you
also played Casio, you played Ryu, you played other characters
in between, but like Terry's been that guy.
Like what's up with Terry? Why is it I?
Guess the Terry, it's like, it'slike really my first character
that I like broke out with. Like I know I also broke out
with Casio, but like I also played them a lot when I was

(01:17:32):
like first starting to get pretty good at Smash, right?
So it's just like when you play a character for like 6 years and
he goes to another game that youalso really care about, that you
also like love and trying to getbetter and you're like, oh wow,
this is cool. You know, So naturally just
leads to that evolution, I guess, going back to last year,

(01:17:57):
September 2024, you know, I'm, I'm figuring it out.
And he was kind of dookie when he came out.
He was. It was pretty, Yeah.
It was pretty, Yeah. I mean like he was.
OK, he was very mid. Extremely mid.
He wasn't low tier or anything but he was like he was fucking
mid. Like what's the point when you
can just play like Ken? Yeah, and his mid screen combos
were like terrible. There was a lot of problems he

(01:18:19):
had. He didn't have a plus on block
button, like, right? Yeah, it was weird, but I was
still having fun. I was still having fun.
I was still improving right, So cuz like at the time we didn't,
we still didn't know how good hewas really, and I was still
improving. So that kind of masked like the
probably like how actually bad he was or whatever, right, But
he was extremely mid. But I'd say it changed when when

(01:18:44):
the December patch rolled around, bro, I think that's when
he started to actually become like a an actual character.
You know that people have to like, be scared about, right?
Yeah, Just kept playing, gettingbetter.
I started doing pretty good at these online tournaments.
That's such a big blessing that FGC has, by the way, the fact

(01:19:05):
that we have like these weekly, like like 3 big weekly
tournaments, yeah, that everyonecan watch and play and have fun.
And I think that's such AI thinkthe online tournament scene is
like such a blessing to have, especially for practice.
Yeah, we don't have the local scene anymore like Smash shows,
but we do have instead 3 majors a week.

(01:19:27):
Yeah, Yeah. Basically we have three North
American majors every single week that you can log in in
terms of. And play in terms of like
getting better and practicing. It's such a huge like benefit, I
think that the NEC has. I think that's such I think
everyone, anyone, anyone lookingto like becoming really good or
improving should always, you know, enter those in my in my

(01:19:48):
opinion, if you have the time, of course, I know it's it's it's
really time consuming and stuff.But right, that's just what I do
right. So I just kept entering these
tournaments slowly starting to get better.
You know, I get my first top 8 at like a can opener or
something and I was like. Whoa, that's a big deal.
Actually, no, actually no. Technically I got my first top 8
at a can opener with Ken in. I beat Knuckle Doo.

(01:20:11):
OK, and that was like my first. That was like it's so funny
because I was my first like big player win.
I guess like the the first like big like professional player
Street Fighter when I got or like to get to get top it at
like a all night tournament, Right, right.
And I played Ken. I was playing Ken for a while.

(01:20:32):
Right, that was like your in between character.
I remember you. You.
Had that was like it was, yeah, yeah.
Luke for for primary focus and then you're like screw this Ken
for a little bit. Well after Luke got nerfed and
then Terry came out shortly. After and then Terry came out.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Your Ken was getting pretty good.
I remember you, you, we. I played your Ken a bit and I
was like, Oh yeah, it's a littlemore scary, yeah.
Like I get thrown I mean here. Then I'm in the corner and yeah,

(01:20:54):
it's this. Is good.
They nerfed everything that I abused.
It's so funny. They they nerfed the back throw
Okie, they nerfed they nerfed like no, no, no, with with Ken.
They nerfed like the back throw Okie, they nerfed level 1 Okie,
they nerfed like a OK, so you got out.
They nerfed, they nerfed yeah, everything I like abused.
It was so funny, but he was dude, he's so broken.

(01:21:15):
But anyways. So what I'm seeing here, though,
is like you're playing Terry. I'm curious about the transition
moment, right? Because December, Terry's
getting good. You're doing all these online
tournaments and it's like you'reyou're in the mix for sure at
this point, like you're in the NA online mix.
People know, Oh yeah, Riddles playing that Terry and he's he's

(01:21:37):
Terry's a good character. Riddles is definitely a threat.
We got to watch out for him, butyou're still considered, I think
at this point, like a smash player, like or at least as
you're an active smash competitor is what I should say,
not you're considered a smash player.
And and those in the know in theFTC are like, Oh yeah, Riddles
is here. He's he's a competitor.
We got to watch out for him. But then in April that year, you

(01:21:59):
go to Japan and then correct my pronunciation here.
Kagaribi, Kagaribi. Yeah.
Kagaribi, you go to this tournament in Japan 2548
players. Yep.
It almost seems like also, by the way, in Japan their smash
scene was growing kind of similar to how like Street
Fighter was growing it felt like.

(01:22:20):
Yeah, everything, like everything's just bigger in
Japan. Yeah, it's weird.
They were it. Is bigger in.
Japan, the tournament scene for Smash, was getting larger year
after year, while it was sort ofdeclining slowly.
And and North America, it felt like.
Yeah, the culture. Culture is just different,
right? Right.
So you're going to this tournament, This ends up being
your last like Focus Smash tournament.

(01:22:41):
And can you describe like going to this tournament?
What are you thinking at this time And what what is your
mindset going to Japan to play Smash Ultimate?
Well, you have to preface this because a month before that got
dropped by Liquid, right? So this is the last tournament
that they covered, at least partially.

(01:23:02):
It was, I think it's still to this day like the biggest Smash
Ultimate tournament, right? And I got a pretty OK result.
I got like 9th out of it sucks. I didn't get top eight.
I was really close, but you knowit's OK going into it.
When I was at the tournament, I had like 0 pressure.
I had like absolutely 0 pressureI had I had zero nerves.
Maybe that's why I did so well is cuz I could literally feel

(01:23:24):
like the fear in my like enemieslike heart when I was playing,
when I was playing versus them. I'm like wow, you are so like
nervous and scared and I'm just like vibing right.
Like literally the whole time Literally the whole tournament.
Everyone's just playing really nervous and I can just tell cuz
I guess because of the notorietythe tournament had.
But since it was my last one, I didn't.

(01:23:44):
I was kind of whatever I was feeling kind of whatever about
it. I guess the intern, it helped me
get a pretty OK result. So yeah, that's how I felt.
But at the same time, I was actually going to Evil Japan.
It was a dual smash Street Fighter trip.
Okay, first week I went, first week I went to Kaguribi, and
then next week after to Evil Japan.
I didn't do that well. I got like what, 97th?

(01:24:05):
I got 97th in Evil Japan. And I was so sad because it
might be a weird comparison, butI looked back to my last year
Evil. I'm like 97th again, right?
I was like, I know it's literally, it's a stupid
comparison cuz it's literally completely different
demographics and completely different tournament size and
overall quality of players is completely different.

(01:24:27):
But in my head I was like 97th again, same number, same number,
whatever, right? And it was still like regardless
of everything, it was still it'sstill like build builded a
character for me. I still got better from it.
And I think after that, I don't know, St. for the six, I was in
kind of a weird limbo in terms of tournament results.

(01:24:47):
I was getting better in the online tournament scene, but my
offline tournament results were still kind of lacking.
Like I got 97 there, right? That was the first tournament of
this Capcom Pro Tour season, I think.
And then I think after that was,I believe comma breaker.
I think so, yes. I believe it was comma breaker
and I didn't I could literally Icould feel my improvement, but

(01:25:09):
my tournament results weren't showing it like I got like a
65th kind of and that's. Your first tournament, because
you made the announcement, I think when you got back from
this trip that hey, like I'm going full time now.
I said it in the month prior, but yeah, basically.
It was the month prior. OK.
So you, you made that announcement before going to

(01:25:29):
Kaga Reebe like a rebe. Sorry I'm I'm butchering you.
Got it. You got it.
So you made the announcement beforehand?
Yeah. OK.
I, I I I think I noticed a. Good time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was before.
I see, OK, so you would not had already really publicly got that
weight off your shoulders. So that's why yeah, you felt
unleashed almost night that a 2548.

(01:25:52):
So that's an awesome placement. OK, so then EBU Japan is your
first one week after first time like pivoting focus entirely
Street Fighter Six. So comma breaker is like you're,
you're in your Street Fighter six grind mode like this is
where. You're, I mean, I think it was
like literally a week after, right?
Literally like a week after Japan.
So I didn't do that well, but I,I, I felt like I played good.

(01:26:15):
Like, you know, you know, when you like, feel like you can,
you're improving and you're playing good, but the results
don't show it. Oh yeah, I don't know.
That's how I felt. At least I could feel
improvement still and after thatshortly I think was it goes CEO
after. It would be CEO and then, but

(01:26:37):
there was another CEO and then. Evo Was there another
tournament? What was that?
In between Evo there was one other tournament, so you had CEO
and you got a 65th again at thattournament.
Yeah, pretty mad. I I just, I don't know, I was
kind of struggling for a while. I think like still not really
breaking out I guess, but still like still like trying my best,

(01:27:01):
right? At the end of the day, that's
all you can do. And then the end.
Of the day even like with all the stuff you just got to keep
grinding Raz streaming and stuff.
Yeah, so you're you're grinding this time, you're switching your
focus to St. Butter 6.
Then an interesting event comes up in between CEO and EVO, which
is, you know, Gamel like a Canadian tournament series.

(01:27:22):
This tournament was interesting to me because for some reason
Gamal and a lot of the Canadian tournaments always managed to
get a very prolific representative to show up there.
Daigo, Daigo. Is like.
He's in Canada more than he's inin the States.
It feels like he shows up to these regions.
So Gamal for Street Fighter is not ACBT event.
So it's not as large, generally doesn't attract as much

(01:27:45):
international talent. It's like a regional major in
the world of Street Fighter. But it's in, it's in Toronto,
you know it's nearby for you. And so of course you're going to
be there to compete. You go to this tournament and
Daigo's there. So everyone's like, oh, of
course Daigo's going to win free.
Of course, like that's the, you know, the OG is going to take
it. He ends up getting 9th.

(01:28:07):
Yeah, he lost to kind of blown up.
He lost to Scott Vermillion, yes, in winners.
Who is the best? I think one of the best Melty
Blood players like ever. But I actually lost him at Comma
Breaker. He was playing, I don't know he
when he beat me. He's just playing amazing at the
time. I'm not going to lie, but he
beats Daigo and I get my run back on Scott Vanilli.

(01:28:29):
So I beat the guy who beat that Go.
There you go, I guess right. So that was that was an
interesting turn of events. But also, you know 801 Strider,
right? Yeah, of course.
Yeah, so obviously very, very good player.
He loses to a geef smash player.You know guy guy, guy guy guy

(01:28:50):
the GOAT, the goat. He also beat E Design CEO but
yeah he lost. He lost a Luigi player in Smash.
I think that was bad. I'm a Luigi player.
I know you're you're a Luigi player.
I watch this, I watch the streams when you're just TV
people. I couldn't get to that net coded
Smash Ultimate. I was like, yeah, let me try to
play some Smash. I'll take it seriously.

(01:29:10):
No way. You guys are way, way more
stronger than I am that it's insane.
Yeah, it's funny you bring up Guy Guy because there's also
like, lazy boredom, for example.Yeah, yeah, he was a little Mac
player in Smash One. He's like the best Marissa in NA
right now. Yeah, something.
He's really there's a lot of really good smash players right
now and, and, and Street Fightersix kind of like leading the the

(01:29:31):
charge I think the most publicly.
But if if you're paying attention to the NA scene,
there's a lot of landmine players who are really good that
will beat known players that were originally from the smash
community. So interesting to see.
And on top of that, Canada, I think is stepping it up as well
as this this tournament shows and other results show and
you're also leaving that charge.I feel like Canada was in the

(01:29:52):
Street Fighter community also under represented for a while
now. They're safe in yourself.
Yeah, I beat a lot of the peoplewho beat.
It's kind of, it's a weird tournament because I beat a lot
of the people who beat the othergood players, basically, at
least the people who made the upsets.
That means you. Beat the.
Players and then you had taking.You're being a little humble

(01:30:13):
right now, man, but you end up winning gamble, you win this.
Tournament die goes there. 801 strider is there, you know.
Still matters to me because it still matters to me because it's
gamble, Gamble I, that was my first major Gamble was my first
ever major tournament back in like the middle of 2018.
OK. So back when I was like still a

(01:30:35):
scrub and like everything, I don't know, but you know, it
still matter to me because it was gambling.
It was, it was like. You defended the home turf.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Well, you did the thing in the backyard.
That's. Always.
And I also won the the team tournament we also won.
The I wanted to bring that up. You did the Beast Cup north
side. So Beast Cup is like Diego's

(01:30:56):
tournament series where he he organizes the team tournaments
and he's brought that over to events like ECT.
And he has his own single tournament series as well.
So that's kind of his branded tournament series that he
usually partners up to like get an extra little bit of flair for
these events. And you were on the team with
Thunder, your fellow Canadian, and Daigo himself.

(01:31:18):
And Taigo, Yeah. How?
Who was that dude like you teamed up with Daigo for a team
tournament. What's going on there?
What's the story and how? How was that experience?
I mean it was pretty. I don't it was pretty.
We we won. We just, we won.
It was pretty. I mean, Daigo did a lot of work
too. I'm not going to lie.

(01:31:38):
I don't think I even did that much.
I think it was just mostly Thunder and Daigo just wrecking
people. I mean, I I still did some
things. But yeah, I know they're just,
there's crazy good players. They just won.
But how did that come to be? Like.
And I'm maybe it's also maybe a generational, generational
divide, right? I don't know.

(01:31:58):
Do you view Daigo as like a goat?
Like is Diego someone? Of course, dude.
Yeah, of course. Well, you know some new
generation players are got to look more like the punks and
MENA RDS, right? Like you look at a maybe like a
blase. Like I think he even had like a
little thing about ranking players.
And to him Punk is like the guy,right?
So I would say those those players are definitely still are

(01:32:20):
also like GOAT level, right? You know, there's so many
amazing players, especially MENAPunk, and then I look up to them
a lot, but Dago, like, that's Dago, come on, I've been around,
you know, like I, I, I, I, I but.
You didn't see his evil wins, right?
You had to. You had to research it after the
fact. You didn't see 2010?
I didn't see it live or anythingthough, right, Right.
I had to like but I saw it even 137 obviously.

(01:32:44):
But you, You've done your history like you've dug.
Dug. Through I know my history, yeah,
yeah, yeah, right. And you know, it kind of sucks
because I definitely feel like II don't know what it is, but I
feel like top players, I feel like people when they fight top
players, they like sometimes they over respect them and they
just play like a weird style that they are just play weird

(01:33:06):
compared to that. If they were to just view them
as like a nobody, I feel like that's definitely a buff that
like top players have. I definitely felt it.
I felt it when I fought, when I fought Daigo at he's obviously,
but that's way ahead. That's the way ahead.
We can get to lie later. But how did that even get you on
the team? Like how did that happen?
2 Canadians in Daigo? Did Daigo come approach you guys

(01:33:27):
or like? Yeah, I think so.
I think, I think Daigo's team just went up to me and just
like, hey, you want to join thisteam?
I'm. Like, sure, I'll think about it.
I'll consider it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You could have brushed off Daigo.
I mean, yeah, it's not like a great opportunity.
So I mean, they just hit me up. They just hit me and Thunder up
and I was just like, yeah, of course we're going to do that.
Yeah, of course you don't. You don't turn down the beast

(01:33:50):
there when you ask, ask the teamup like that.
OK, so Gamal, you got your winner, your your belts in
Street Fighter Six. You defended the home turf.
And then, you know, the big thing I think for any Street
Fighter player right now is there's there's the two big
ones, there's Captain Cup, 43, Evo, Captain Cup and EWC, right?

(01:34:10):
Yep. Evo you don't have, I think like
a major breakout performance there.
You do end up getting top 64. That's better than, you know,
top 96. Like was it?
Were you happy about the number?Went up.
It was weird. It was weird.
It was weird because the guy OK,so I was supposed to fight so
round so round one winners like I made it right.

(01:34:32):
I make it, make it through and then I beat the guy by round
one, Alex Smith, I think, or round two, Sorry, I'm supposed
to fight Nemo, right? I'm supposed to fight Nemo and
then he loses to this. He loses to a random like Luke
player. I've never heard of Raven is raw
right? And I was like for some reason
when I saw that result, I was like, oh, this guy.

(01:34:52):
I think this guy's a Kimberly player.
So I was like, cuz, and Kimberlyis like, I mean she's not like
super top tier, but she is like a a threat, right?
She is a some character that youcan definitely be afraid about
because I was like, OK, I'm, I'mgetting mentally prepared for
this. Kimberly.
I'm going to, I'm going to hold all this mix.
I'm going to have the best defense of my life.
I'm going to have the best neutral of my life.

(01:35:13):
He picks Luke and I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, Oh yeah.
I love fighting Luke. That's my guy.
Because, you know, obviously I played him, but yeah, I beat
him. Then the next round I fight Fudo
and who though is that guy's good.

(01:35:35):
That guy's really, really good. He destroys me.
He destroyed me at column breaker.
That's how he lost. Doing winners destroyed me.
It was like 4 rounds straight. 4minutes at it was destruction
Evo he this time I take around every game but I still he still
beats me like I kept it closer, but he still beats me right and

(01:35:57):
you know it is what it is. It starts the Japanese Ed arc
because so I lose to him and then I beat some I don't know if
they're Japanese or Chinese, butthere's some Asian Ed right an
Ed from Asia. I beat him and I fight Sahara,
another Japanese Ed and then he and then I I was up a game and
like should have been around, but he takes it overall and I

(01:36:20):
was like, damn, I was playing really nervous at the end.
I don't know why, but yeah, he takes it to like AI think 49th
at EVO, which was my highest placement is is still my highest
placement at like a evil tournament to this day.
But like it's still like kind ofI think it's my highest
placement like CPT tournament overall, but like still like
whatever. Right, Right.
Yeah, so that happens. And I'm just like, oh, man, you

(01:36:44):
know, it's weird. For a long time I was
struggling, I'd say, with my results like that, right?
Stuck in this like weird 4960 fifth limbo.
I mean, it could happen again inthe future, right?
But this is how it was. And then Thunder just goes up
and he's just like, do you want to go to Saudi Arabia?
You want to go to EWC, bro? And it's like, I was like, I'll

(01:37:07):
think about it because, you know, I'm still, I'm free agent.
Going traveling events cost a lot of money right and whatnot.
I completely forgot that I won sage I'm slam in the middle.
We we're still focused on the wow, I'm trying.
To brush this off, you know, I don't know, man, we have to
bring up that one. Yeah, leaning for the EVO.
You did end up winning. Sage but that's that's how I

(01:37:29):
that's how I was able to get into evo because really Sage I'm
solve yeah, because remember, well, same for you, right,
right. Because he was able to, we both
got, we both got the trip. Right, Yes, correct.
Top two teams there got the trip.
But I mean, I was going to go toEVO regardless.
It did help. Out that's how you're going to
go regardless too right? It sounds like also.

(01:37:49):
What you're saying is like, you're trying to make this work.
You're recently dropped, you're trying to figure out your career
in fighting you to this point. So like this is like you kind of
need it. Yeah, it's more than just.
One, it's like this is somethingthat you, it's going to help you
in your career to proceed in this dream that you're chasing
here. Yeah, and, and I, I, I just

(01:38:11):
brought it up because I think itwas an interesting arc in like
my development for Street Fighter, like coaching other
people and like helping them outand trying to win as a team was
definitely a refreshing experience and, you know, trying
to clutch the team. I did want to bring that up like
your team, Scooch, Shumimi, DodoDoya and box boxing yourself.

(01:38:33):
You ended up doing really well in the round Robin.
You guys were ranked second in the round Robin and then you end
up clutching it out for the actual overall thing.
And and a lot of those matches in the in the bracket, from what
I recall, they came down to the coaches matches, right?
Yeah. For me, I was kind of coasting
until the very end, which was mygoal.

(01:38:54):
I was trying to coach my team tocarry me to the very end, I
mean. I think, I think for the most
part my my team also put in a lot of work as well.
Yeah. So how was, how was that
experience? Like you're relatively fresh in
terms of focusing on Street Fighter Six and also like,
you're a younger guy. Yeah, you're coaching people who

(01:39:15):
are older than you. Like, how was this whole dynamic
of being now a leader of a squadand having to build them up to
do this team tournament, be likea leadership position like that?
I think it was really fun. I don't know, OK, I got, like
players who played characters that I'm, like, pretty familiar
with, like Box. Box played Luke, though, they

(01:39:36):
played Terry. So I can teach them, you know,
the intricacies of the characters and help them a lot.
Assuming he played JP, who like,I don't play, but I fought a lot
of J PS. I bought a lot of J PS.
I know, I know what the cheap shit is.
Literally every time I said level 2, level 2, level 2, she
won the guy like guy like, you know, but that shit is cheap.

(01:39:57):
But I was like, and Scooch, I think played Ryu.
Yeah. And you know, everyone knows
Ryu. I played.
He was my first name before Luke.
Actually. I was able to teach them the
injured kids just like. Small fundamentals, but you got
to take it like bit by bit, you know, character knowledge.
Like it's so crazy because when you look back, it's like you
take a lot of stuff that you learn like for granted, like
combo execution, intricacies of the mechanics, like reacting to

(01:40:20):
DI, reacting to drive rush, parrying, like all this stuff.
It's like you take it for granted when you reach a certain
level, but for a long time it's like for like when you view it
from those perspectives. I don't know, it's interesting
because I think is very meticulously designed around as
a game for like not just for topplayers, but you know, for like

(01:40:41):
beginners media. It's built around for everybody,
right? But yeah, no, it was really cool
just working together as a team,trying to like, I tried to be
like good with my mentality, youknow, trying to like boost team
morale and like just just like not, I don't know, not to like
make people. I, I try not to give like too

(01:41:02):
much pressure on them, just likeI was like, try to have fun with
it. You know, I try to still give
tests and whatnot. Breathe, drink some water, you
know, typical comparative minds that shit, right?
Just just the accumulation of like what I've learned, I guess,
trying to transfer that and and it worked in some way, right?
It turned out being good. That's awesome.
Yeah. Your team even just looking at

(01:41:22):
someone like Scooch, right? I think there's, it's always
interesting how from an experienced fighting game player
like yourself who's been playingfrom such a young age and then
to coach someone in the Tier 1, you always have to strip away
all those preconceived notions and like try to focus in on what
they are able to do now with their level of experience.
So like just doing like the classic reuse Strat.

(01:41:44):
He like jumps. Away and then does like.
Jump, jump, heavy kick and sweep.
It worked. It worked.
That's but that's a great strategy at that level of play.
And then he even had the sneaky.That's a great execution too.
Yeah, he did pull off a decent amount of combos and which was
surprising considering how he's playing the neutral.
Like I was surprised when the combos could be good too.

(01:42:05):
Like he has the runaway and the combos and he even did walk up
neutral jump to bait out, wake up, throw tech with heavy cake.
And I was like, Oh no, that's that's the Tier 1.
Too much sauce. That's.
The brain destroyer, like first of all, you know that people
want to tech throws on wake up like so was that something you
taught him? Actually, did you?
Or did something I kind of just taught him like the the general

(01:42:27):
basics of like decision making, like what I tried to tell them,
like what they would generally what people like to do, like on
wake up. Like, oh, they're gonna, they're
gonna DI here, they're gonna wake up, you know, whatever here
and just try and they, they, they would sometimes mess up.
But like, you know, it's about the learning experience at the
end of the day. And it worked out.

(01:42:49):
Yeah. But yeah, that I think that
built a lot of character. I think that was definitely a
cool experience. Yeah, how how was that like?
Like you, you because you like you literally did have to win
the coaches matches a a number of times to to proceed through,
right. I think you did it against
Chikote's team. And yeah, Chikote.

(01:43:11):
And then also in the grand finals against myself, you, you
went up to play. So like, how was that experience
winning for your team there to actually get that done in the
end? It's interesting because when I
I feel like I play better with pressure, like or like with

(01:43:31):
tournament pressure or like I feel like I play, I really,
really lock in. That's just how, I don't know.
That's just always how I've beenlike I really enjoy playing in
that environment. I feel like calm, you know, I
feel like that's when I play thebest personally, you know, when
you really give it your all and you really care about some
things. So I mean, this is how it's.

(01:43:51):
Just how I show it, man. You beat my ass that day, man.
I thought maybe, you know, in the group stage is around 1:00.
We kind of had a close set. I was like, you had a you
definitely turned it up. I'll say I locked you locked in.
You got it done. Yeah.
That was that was a big win for you.
It was awesome to see like like you're one of the newer guys, I
think in the whole squad too, right, you know, so to to come

(01:44:14):
in and and get that done with your team was was really cool to
see. So you finish up, save them
slam. You have evo Thunder convinces
you to go all the way to Saudi Arabia on on a whim.
So you weren't planning on goingbecause like you already tried
to qualify for EWC. I mean comma breaker, CEO evo,
those are all EWC qualifiers. So it's, there's no more chances
aside from the the LCQ. But the LCQ, you know, it's a

(01:44:36):
kind of a weird format. It's definitely structured,
'cause they just want everybody to go.
Weird. It was a weird tournament.
Yeah. So top.
All of top 8 gets into the EWC, which is, you know, the $300,000
million dollar overall prize pool tournament.
So people want to qualify for that and, you know, get a piece
of the, the pie, right? So you're incentivized to go,
'cause it's like I don't have towin.

(01:44:57):
I just got to get top 8. But then that.
Brings money if you go down but.Right, that brings in all the
competition. Yeah, so, and I was that that
that trip was so weird because Iwas like really jet lagged and
every day I was getting like I was wake, I would like go to
sleep at like 2:00 AM, right. And this tournament is like the

(01:45:20):
most I ever studied, like studying for players and stuff
and just how they play, their habits.
I'd say it's a really, really big health.
I mean, I'm sure MENA has talkedabout this with you, but it's,
it definitely helps in like learning about the character,
their habits for the tournament is really nice.
So I would, I would like go to sleep at like 2 and then I'd

(01:45:44):
wake up at like 5 cuz of my jet lag.
It was just really, it was really weird.
I'd get like not a lot of sleep,but it was still like fun.
I, I win my Round 1 and in my round two I fight Taki, Taki
Piano, who is like the top ranked JP.
He was like #2 CFN at the time. So I was like, shit, this guy's,
this guy's gonna be, you know, And it was a pretty close set.

(01:46:05):
It was 2/1, but I could definitely feel like the lack of
tournament experience when I, when I fought him cuz he's like
a little kid. He's like 16 years old or
something like that. And he was, he was his first out
of region tournament. So I could definitely like feel
like in his gameplay, he definitely wasn't as confident
as like if I were to look up like ACFN replay, right?

(01:46:26):
You could definitely feel the more you do this stuff, like the
more you do this competition stuff, definitely feel
nervousness like fear in an opponent's heart, right, right.
Just when you're playing them right, you can just tell.
So I was just able to tell that if I Diego, and this goes back
to the conversation where I was saying that, you know, these top

(01:46:46):
players, sometimes people respect him too much.
I definitely respected him way too much, right.
I was doing good in the first game like I should have.
Like there were times where I was like, I would be like, oh,
shot EXTP here and I was like, no, I don't want to do it.
I'll be a scrub and then and then he and then the interaction
happens. I'm like, wait, it would have
worked, right? Like you can't, you can't, you

(01:47:07):
can't be afraid of these guys. Like you got to you really just
got to go with your gut, you know?
But he beats me in the closest side to O and I just beat some
guy and losers to make it out. Now he dropped to losers,
though. I mean, this is this is fairly
far away from top 8, right? It's round three to Diego.
And you, you respected him too much.
And you, you doubt it. You're you second guessed your
decision making. Yeah, basically.

(01:47:28):
And you're all the way in Saudi Arabia, like you're so far away
from home, you're jet lagged. Like what is your thought when
you drop into a loser's bracket?Are you like, oh, why did I come
here? Or are you like, hell no, it's
time to it's time to walk in like what is what is your
thought process at that moment? I don't know, at the time I just
didn't really care about the result.

(01:47:49):
I just like really just held down focus on studying for my
opponents, just playing a lot ortrying to play, you know, before
and right now. It's also this tournament was
weird because mid set coaching was allowed.
So my boy Thunder, he didn't really even give like that in

(01:48:10):
depth, like gameplay coaching. He mostly just gave like
mentality stuff just like Paycom, Paycom down like
instead, right, right. So that in in part like
definitely helped me. But yeah, BGOA, my next round
was Oil King Terry player and heis actually up a game.
Terry Player. That's what you would say.
The Oil King for people listening, that's the Rashid

(01:48:30):
player for many years. Yeah, I know, I know.
That's the Rashid. You're downplayable Evil Japan
champion, by the way. He.
Won the final. Japan actually didn't know he
won Evil Japan. For Street Fighter, I feel bad
for him 'cause he wanted act right before Street Fighter Six
came out, so I feel like it's lost to time.
Yeah, EVO Japan champion, so just trying to play him up for
the audience. Here, but he's playing Terry

(01:48:50):
now, so he's very good. Yeah, he's doing the Terry
Mirror. Yeah, I managed to make the
comeback too Well, so I managed to beat him and I forgot what
was the order after. I think it was Chris Wong.
Chris Wong's up next. It kind of sucked cuz the
tournament schedule was so weird.
I we had to like wait like 2 hours before our next match when

(01:49:11):
it could have just happened likeimmediately but there was like
weird breaks in between. I felt like he it kind of sucks
cuz I felt like he got like pre tilted from the from that it's
getting. Iced, Yeah.
Yeah, I was like, damn. Like he's definitely more pissed
off about this than me. He won the first round, but I
managed to beat him. Yeah, I fought Takamura.

(01:49:32):
But so far, like these wins, you've beaten international
players before, like well known players.
Chris Wong, second in Captain Cup 2023, Ola King, Eva Japan
champion. Are you feeling at this moment
like, wait, I'm making a run right now?
Like what? Are you just purely locked in
process focus? I, I am definitely, I definitely

(01:49:52):
do have like the back thought inmy head.
I'm like, oh shit, I like I've never, I didn't, I don't know.
I've never really like I've beenpeople good players in online
tournaments, not really offline.That was like my first time
really beating like multiple world class players.
In a row offline. So right in a row offline.
And then at this point you're 3 rounds away from actually making

(01:50:13):
it right? Like, yeah, suddenly it seems so
far away when you lose a Daigo, but then you're shipping away at
it, you're halfway there and you're putting a run together.
So I fight Takamura and I managed to win 20 Europeans
don't really know the Terry match up as well because there's
like no and like every time I talk with like a top European

(01:50:35):
player and Street Fighter, like the Street Fighter community,
they always be like yeah, there's like no Terry's here,
like no, like no like super top level Terry mains.
I guess anything has a lot of that.
There's some that in Asia, right, But I'd say anything
maybe has the most for some reason, but like it doesn't
really exist in Europe, you know, like you know, like the

(01:50:55):
the litmus test for if someone knows a Terry matchup, if you
throw a medium fireball and theyPerry.
And they don't at least dry brush, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, this guy
doesn't know. Like that's like that's like the
the big test. So that happened against
Takamura. I managed to win that.
And then Kobe next day after Kobe next day.

(01:51:18):
Next one and walk us through this game.
I mean, like, yeah, in the back of my head I was like, oh cool,
I'm making a run. But like, eh, whatever you got
to, you got to focus on when you're in the competition, you
got to focus on like what's ahead of you, right?
Like what's in front of you. But I still just trying to think
like think in the moment, studying for these players.
And then Kobean is next. I've always felt comfortable,

(01:51:38):
like people were when I bring uplike when I brought it up,
people were like scared for me, like, oh, shoot, that's like
that's really hard, right? And like he is very good.
But I've always felt confident in the Terry Geef matchup.
I don't know if you felt the same, but like.
I hate the Terry Geef matchup. You hate it.
You hate it. I love it.
I love it. I actually, I don't know, I've
always felt like Terry had really like the light, the low
fireball, the low forward and like light kick.

(01:52:01):
I feel like it's really hard forand I feel like his offense is
so good against Keef as well, but that's just Keef having a
bad defense. But anyways, Colbyon was beating
the crap out of me until I got aLevel 3 reaction like I did
staying light kick drive rush into Level 3 and I had like a
little like pixel left and it kind of just shifted the whole
the momentum of the whole set. And that's like 1.

(01:52:23):
So to be clear, you. You had you didn't have enough
life left to be able to counter DI.
No, I would. No, I would have been.
I would have been, I was burnt out and that would have been.
Chipped. Yeah, it would have been chipped
and it yeah, you had nothing. You had no way to counter the DI
aside from breaking through it somehow or interrupting it
somehow. And so that's why Kobean on
defense like I'm just going to press DI here because if you do
anything, you're just going to die.

(01:52:44):
And so you did stand like a driver's cancel, which actually
puts you into burnout interacting with this DI.
He he armors through it. How did you you react almost
immediately with a full blown Level 3 on that driver's cancel
and you anything else would you would have been dead how exactly
to come to be like what happenedthere?
I was on 2 1/2 hours of sleep that day, dude.

(01:53:06):
I don't know, like when you're in competition, dude, and like
the and you feel the adrenaline,it's like, it's like nothing
else matters. And like everything is just
like, like your whole focus is just on that batch, you know?
And I just felt really, even with like my severe lack of
sleep and jet lag, I still felt really locked, locked in, I

(01:53:27):
guess, right. I was able to get that and win
the set. After that, after I beat
Kobayana, I fight Ryu Say. And this is the match, this is,
this is the. Top the match, get it?
I win the first game. Yeah, I win the first game
pretty dominantly. He's getting coached by like
Kintio, the best Terry in Japan,like oh shit.
But I can. I can.
You know what's funny? I know some I know some some

(01:53:48):
like Street Fighter terms like he would say like he'd say like
Shaka me drew punch, which meanslike crash and beat punch or he
would say like the heavy punch. And I was like, Ah, you think I
don't understand, but I, I know some things you're.
Saying, oh, they, they said crouchy, meaning punch and heavy
punch. That's a lot.
Yeah, it's all right there. Yeah, yeah, I.
Understand, I understand. But yeah, it was, I mean super

(01:54:11):
close. He barely won game two.
I managed to win game three justby like checking.
I forgot, I forgot what it was. I checked some boof with Crouchy
meaning punch and I got Level 3 combo and I qualified and it was
a crazy thing. It's just like, oh, I'll just
stress, you know, I was like, whoa, I actually did it.
It's funny too, cuz I accidentally, I accidentally

(01:54:32):
disconnected my, I don't know ifit was me, by the way, I don't
know if it was me or you say, but a controller disconnected
during the Super hard cutscene. But like we both, anybody who
plays Street Fighter knows that he was dead.
Like right, right. Anybody who actually plays and
he knew he was dead. I knew he was dead.
So he was like, and I think it regardless of the CPT rules, he
would have got the loss anyways.Cuz if you unpause and the like

(01:54:53):
and I, I went cuz like I did win, then it would just be
handed to me. Like I looked at the rules.
It was interesting because Japanese Twitter was like
cancelling me for being. Whoa, you're getting?
Slacked from the Japanese community.
Yeah, interesting. I was yeah, I was getting
cancelled in the Japanese streetfight coming here.
Like, Oh my God, dude, why don'tyou just you know, why don't you

(01:55:14):
just sit down? You're being so disrespectful.
I'm like, damn, bro, what the hell?
So I was like, even when I'm like doing this huge
accomplishment, I'm still getting Flack.
But I mean, if you look at the rules, it's another interesting
culture clash between the NA andJapanese scenes.
In NA, you know, people pop off like that all the time and no
one, everyone's like, oh, let's go, you know, nobody cares.

(01:55:35):
But I guess it's different in Japan.
I still I still apologize for I I apologize to research.
I mean, he didn't he he he's been to these tournaments.
He doesn't care. Like hey.
Yeah, it's going to be the, it'sgoing to be the salty fans in
Japan. Yeah, that's that's funny.
The fans are getting salty in Japan, yeah.
But I mean. Obviously.
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so I, I, I just said he

(01:55:56):
didn't care because he's been tosome of these tournaments
already. Right, yeah, you definitely want
to avoid the pause though. That that would be my
recommendation. Do the pop off, but you don't
want to. And and plus, we saw what
happened with punk the next. Week that was crazy.
So I saw that in the in the backstage, like live as it was
happening and I was like Oh my God.

(01:56:18):
But yeah, Anyways, yeah. So I make it to EWC.
I'm in Saudi for another week. Yeah, I like that work because
the the EWCLCQ was also a coupleof days.
I believe they separated by days, which is strange for A
tournament of that size. And then it's almost a full week
break before the actual main event.

(01:56:40):
How did you plan? Just logistically, Like we're
like, oh crap, wait a minute, I'm here for a whole nother
week. I'm not going home like.
What was what? Was your mindset like wait this
actually happened? Holy crap I'm actually in the
Utah BC I'm. Here, now, I I did bring enough
clothes. Just in case I did.
I did bring enough clothes. So you believed a little ahead
of time. I believed a little ahead of
time. I was like, oh wow, I actually

(01:57:00):
made it right. So you know what's funny?
Actually, Air Canada was actually going through a lot of
strikes. So my original flight got
fucking cancelled. OK, Like my original, my
original flight, like if I were to not qualify and I had to go
back, it got cancelled. So if I didn't make it, I was
fucked. Stuck in Saudi Arabia, I.

(01:57:21):
Was I was screwed. I was literally screwed.
So I literally, I was literally like, wow, I actually I was like
very needed in the moment. But you know, I mean, they
offered us like, you know, hoteland whatnot, just hanged out
with a bunch of players, played a lot before the actual real
tournament. The tournament comes around EWC

(01:57:45):
first round MENA MENA. On the other side is Kawano and
Momochi. Yeah, you, you, you had maybe
it. It's hard to say for sure
because of how stacked the wholeevent is, but if I had to pick a
group that was the most stacked,I would point potentially that
group that in like the Xiaohai Punk.
Yeah, yeah. So.

(01:58:07):
Every every gonna beat ME3O, buteveryone was like, oh man, you
played so good, like your neutral was so you know, like
everyone I talked to was like I was so close, though.
It really came down to like the little interactions.
But I mean, that's, that's just what happens when you're, you
know, acclaimed for this long, right?
Right. He's been doing this for so

(01:58:28):
long. He has that clutch factor,
right? Caught me, caught me hesitating.
God did like the clutch moments on me that that made a
difference. And he was like, yeah, got me
right. But the memochi set, God damn
it. Yeah, you run up against
Memochi, a legend of the game, and it's such a good back and
forth set the entire time. And you are?
Perfect. You're swinging on him like

(01:58:50):
you're making. This right like crazy until the
very end. That last game I went back to
just double check the whole flowof it, right?
You start out checking his roundstart drive rush from the very
last game, last round stand likea drivers cancel.
You get him all the way to the corner.
You get a full Level 3 combo. He's down to like 15% maybe like
he's down. To the wire.

(01:59:11):
And you go for the meaty after one of the knockdowns and he
perfect perries you. I.
Was like, God fucking damn it. I think I started panicking.
Really unfortunate because I don't know, my mind just went
like haywire after Perry. I guess that's just, I don't
know, that's just how it goes, right?
You know, you learn from these experiences, but he manages to

(01:59:34):
clutch on me and I'm just like, God damn it, dude.
It was so close. And people were like, but you
played so good. And I was like, yeah, but I
didn't, you know, I didn't clutch when it mattered.
But you know, that's just, it's just the nature of competition.
Like that's just, it's going to happen, right?
Right. You might get, you might get
really close doing something, might choke at the end, but

(01:59:55):
that's how it is. And you learn and grow from it,
and I did. Did you leave that tournament?
I mean, I'm sure it was a disappointing result overall to
go out in groups like that afterone of your biggest, at that
time, Street Fighter, Six accomplishments, right, getting
through the LCQ. But did you go home from that
tournament feeling more? Motivated, inspired.

(02:00:17):
Because this is like a sign of success.
Like, yeah, wait, I'm doing something.
I'm I'm hanging with the big dogs.
Yeah, overall it was a net positive for sure.
I mean, the whole experience wasa net positive, of course,
right? Like even even though I didn't
do well at the actual tournament, just like making it
somehow at the LCQ, you know, seeing all these people playing
with them getting better, the overall, it was a it was a great

(02:00:38):
experience overall. It's very weird, but it was a
great experience. Yeah, I can imagine it being
weird. It's it's a.
It's a whole weird event no matter which way it's.
Pretty weird, yeah? Right.
But then. But.
After this, you know it leads into UFA, right?
Very pretty shortly after. Did you already have plans to go
to UFA or were you like, oh crap, I'm I'm I'm doing good.

(02:00:58):
I better start packing my bags and go to France.
Like what was your thoughts? I think I was going to go
anyways. I think UFA is probably, I mean,
spoiler, it's probably my last. I don't think I can go to, well,
I can't go to Evil France anymore because registration's
closed. I don't think I'm going to go to
China. I don't, I doubt it.

(02:01:19):
Like especially about 2000. That's why I mean, we'll say it,
but like, I don't, you know, as a free agent, it's kind of hard.
But Sajan was actually able to help me for UFA and I was
actually able to go with him to him again.
Yeah, actually, actually, yeah, talk about that.
So you were debating about UFA, like you're trying to make ends
meet essentially to make this happen because you're a free

(02:01:41):
agent now. Like how did that come to be
that Sage AM offer? I mean, we've been talking for,
yeah, we've been talking for a while with that.
And he was just, I don't know, just I think it was from like a
tweet saying like, I want to send some gamers out to travel
and I had them up. And he was like, yeah, sure.
And because of him, I was able to go to UFA.

(02:02:03):
I don't know my motivation. It was weird.
My motivation after EWC, it was like both high and low at the
same time. And let me let me elaborate.
So I went to some personal stuff, you know, I'm not gonna
get too into it, but definitely put me in like a rut, I think
mentally. So it's like going into UFAI
actually didn't. I wasn't playing as much or like

(02:02:25):
super super super super grind heavy as before and my
motivation of the game even likenow it's weird because the
general consensus of the game state right now, people think
it's kind of stale. I don't want to give too much
Flack. I still think Super Fred Sticks
is an amazing game, don't get mewrong, but I think it could use
some more refreshing updates. I mean, I saw I mean, we're

(02:02:46):
seeing Steve Viper now, like that's going to be all.
I think that's something to lookforward to.
I'm actually very excited for that.
That's something to look forwardto.
Hopefully some balance changes. I would love that.
We'll see, you know, maybe maybethat's wishful thinking, right?
I'm motivating the fact that, oh, I can start doing, you know,
my results starting to get a bitbetter, but the game is like in

(02:03:07):
a weird state right now, I think, but I still went into it
because I was like, fuck it, whynot?
Right, You know, you know, tournaments are fun.
Going to UFA. We actually did another team
tournament. It was me, Noah, the prodigy and
Thunder as well. And the tournament is so funny.
The team tournament was was first to one.

(02:03:27):
It's not it's not. It wouldn't be like a set.
It would be like literally just you do one game and then next
guy, one game, next guy. But Noah is the best fucking
first to one team guy ever. Oh.
Man. We would be close to losing and
then Noah just Oh my God, it wasso like, it's so funny, like
seeing like I love Noah. I I know he gets a lot of Flack.

(02:03:49):
I know he gets a lot of Flack around the FGC, but that's
that's my guy. You know, been friends with him
for a while, but but yeah, he would he would just clutch up in
in Noah fashion. And I was just like, wow, this
is fucking fucking hilarious. Is also awesome.
But yeah, we managed to clutch it out.
Thunder actually clutch it out versus a big Japan team.
I think it was Sahara, Itazan and Ryukichi managed to like

(02:04:13):
just beat them all in one go. The last one we got, we there
was no cash prize, but we got medals.
So OK, there we go. You know, there's there's that
little aspect. So that was fun.
And then the actual tournament comes around.
You know, you might think you might say I act too humble, but
this tournament was really weirdbecause everyone had really hard

(02:04:35):
pools, right? Like the like the pools, like
the pool ones were really stacked.
My top 2 seeds both dequeued. OK, I don't know if you remember
this but. No.
Who were they? It was Hikaru and Goichi and
they were both sick. OK.

(02:04:58):
'Cause like I was. Kind of wondering, I went
through the bracket. I did get your path but.
So in back to the. Players, I didn't recognize some
of the names. Yeah, that.
Round 1, so I went through roundone in no offense, kind of a
Mickey fashion, like that's justhow it is, right?
Sometimes, But I mean like, you know that that's just that's
just how it is with tournaments.Some some people get luckier

(02:05:20):
than others, but starting the next rounds, obviously it's
going to get a little harder. If I would you say again, you
beat Shen, right? So it's a hot EWC run back,
right? So this is when it starts to get
a little harder. close to 1 set by.
Managed to clutch it out again. Managed to clutch it out again.
You're his demon now, man. And a nasty whiff punish game

(02:05:42):
one. And did you pop off too early or
did? You No, I didn't pop.
I didn't pop off. I didn't pop.
Off you learned your lesson. From the Japanese tree monsters.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I managed to beat him
again and then it's the big guy.Next, it's Blas.
The big 15 year old kid from Chile.
Yeah, but I've always, but I mean, I've always ran casuals
with him and he would win most, but I'd I was able to like hold

(02:06:05):
my ground, you know, I was stillable to like take a couple
games, right. So going into it, I was pretty
confident that I could like do it.
You know, like I didn't really again, I try not to care about
the result too much. I just tried to like play my
best, win game one pretty convincingly.
He beats me Game 2 convincingly and then game 3 is down is down
to the last round, I think, and he gets ACA on me.

(02:06:26):
I'm almost burnt, but he accidentally like he messes up
and runs into like my jump heavykick, my neutral jump heavy
kick, right. He tried to like do a driver's
DP, but I think there wasn't enough frames for him to like
probably do it. I managed to win and I was like,
and if you look back on my my camera, I'm like shocked.
I'm like, whoa, that's to be this guy, right?
That's probably probably like biggest like upset Street

(02:06:47):
Fighter win. Yeah, that was huge because
looking into that bracket, everyone I think from that point
because that was was it the qualifier for top eight.
People are looking at blahs like, oh, he's the favorite.
You know, he's been on such a terrorist, second in EWC, second
in Capcom Cup. EWC was not too long ago.
So like, oh, he's hot right now.Like he's proving that he's got

(02:07:09):
he can be consistently at that level at the biggest super
premieres we have. And then you, the Smash player.
Somehow, somehow, somehow into this top eight.
Yeah. So I was feeling kind of weird
about the bracket until that moment.
And I was like, OK, now we're inthis shit, right?
Yeah. Sometimes you get lucky

(02:07:29):
brackets, man. Like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he just for. Me, like I, I remember some of
my biggest personal accomplishments.
I got there like a fudo wasn't there that I was just to play
early in polls, but then after that, you know, I ended up going
on. A run he started, he started
being the big guys, yeah. I took Fudo's spot in the prep,
in the in the path. Maybe it would have got me, but
he wasn't there. You know who knows, right?

(02:07:50):
Yeah, I got to run with this. Yeah, No.
And then if I kings Vega. Oh my God.
Yeah, this is, this is, this is top 8.
So this is the next day, right. So you get to, you get to sleep
on it. Or was it all the same, Terry?
No. No, no, no.
It was the same day. It was the same day.
OK, so you didn't even have thatmuch time to dwell on it?
Yeah, but oh man, Top. Winners but premier.
Boca Terry is such a weird matchup.

(02:08:13):
I don't know. I can't really tell if it's like
bad. It's kind of it's unfortunate
that we can't use like light fireball really, because that's
just I guess over. But I feel like in terms of like
the normal for normal Footsie battle, it's not so bad, but it
also comes down to matchup experience and I don't think NA
has like that many Blancas compared to like I actually
fought a really strong EU Blanca.

(02:08:34):
Don't get me wrong, there's somegood NA Blancas, but I don't
think it's really that like MENARd. kings Vega level right,
right. So like funny that and like
just, I think just, I think whenyou don't know a match up too
well, like the defense is like probably one of the hardest
parts cuz you're like, you don'teven know what you're defending
against, right? So he hits me like I, I remember
having a really strong game one against him and then he just

(02:08:54):
starts, he just starts like turning it up with that
aggression and then I just, it'sgot overwhelmed and he managed
to beat me. The set definitely felt
winnable. Like I definitely could have
done it, but I made mistakes on my part and I realized that.
Were you? Were you feeling any that type
of way though, being on stage for a top 8 premiere?
Like beyond just the matchup itself and the process of

(02:09:17):
playing, like was there any other thoughts in your mind?
Like, oh crap, Like I'm actuallyin the mix right now.
Like I, I set out with my goal to pivot to Street Fighter Six
and then this, these are the events that I am aiming to do
well at these these top eights give me points for qualifying
for the Captain Cup. I'm doing the process and it's
yielding results. Was there any thought about that

(02:09:38):
or are you still actually focused on the process?
When I was actually in the like in the match.
Now I try to when I play in tournament, I try to think about
only just again, what's in frontof me.
Like common question that I get.It's like, oh, how do you not
get nervous? Cuz I think that's a trait of
mine. I don't really get nervous at
tournaments. I don't like I do sometimes,
right, Like for example, that last match at EVO, I do

(02:10:01):
sometimes, but in general I'm not feeling like a sense, an
overwhelming sense of anxiety that's gonna affect my play to
like the extreme level. That might be because of the
fact that I been doing this for so long since I was like a
little kid, right, right. Since the smash days right.
So I know what it feels like to play at A tournament.
I know what it feels like to play on the big stage.

(02:10:23):
Like sure, it's a different game, but it's pretty similar
environment, right, right. I've been on a big stage for a
major before. I actually like it like it's
really fun. It's really fun.
I feel like I'm able to focus onthe game, but also like the
crowd. You know that that's awesome.
I think it's just fun. I don't know, I think it's just
a a cool experience. I don't really think it

(02:10:43):
negatively effects my play. I don't have like these.
I try not to have these overthinking thoughts.
I mean, sometimes eventually you're gonna think about them,
but generally I don't don't really think about it.
Yeah, no Luther King Vega, doable set, but he got me.
He played very well. Then I fight Noah in losers and
it was pretty close but I don't like I watched your reaction and

(02:11:06):
when I hit the the level 1 on his like he did like drivers DII
think to beat like ADP. Yeah, I was a crazy round.
I was a crazy player, I was. Like you're you're meeting Noah
with his energy. Like Noah has his his style,
which is very Noah is like a freight train building momentum.
And so you got to shut it down. That was very good.
But I've played, but I've playedNoah a lot like me once.

(02:11:28):
That's all the time. So it's like, and also he's my
friend. So it's like, you know, I feel
like when you play with a friend, it's different compared
to someone you don't know at all.
But I managed to beat him managed to beat him, which was a
good win as well. It was very good.
And I fight blahs again and no Johns.

(02:11:48):
But this is like really when thetournament fatigue started to
happen. But he played over, he played
better than me, like he he did he he definitely cleaned it up.
I literally do it. I literally saw I was in the
backstage. I literally saw this guy blahs
and his dad vog reviewing his loss against me.
Like I mean I'm assuming it was the loss.
I didn't see the footage, but I'm assuming it was like when he

(02:12:10):
lost he was reviewing right Likeby our side right?
I was like, wow, this is. It's a generational power of
man. Yeah, like he blahs his dad.
He's like a ghost Street Fighterplayer himself.
And so he has. He's fighting two people.
I'm like, wow, this is like, this is crazy.
I'm like, it was very beautiful to see like even though he was
my enemy, right? Like even though he was like my

(02:12:30):
opponent, I was like, wow, seeing that was like seeing him
and his and his dad like travel together and like, you know,
like grow together and get better.
The Street Fighter stuff is like, so I don't know.
I always think it's just a little.
It's just beautiful, like when Isee it.
Right from era where now we havelike multiple generations of
people in, yeah, the FGC who have been through it, right.

(02:12:53):
So we're actually finally seeingthat cross generational support
and access more. So I mean, like, you know,
parents have supported for a long time in terms of like, you
know, getting you access, travel, taking care of you, but
it's a little bit different whenthey've done it themselves.
You know, it's, it's a very different dynamic where they're
like, they, they've lived that experience and now are

(02:13:14):
transferring that experience to their, their, their child and
providing guidance from first hand experience.
And 'cause you're like, you werethat, that position.
And not the exact same way, but like you were a young child
going to tournaments. And you know, it sounds like
your parents were providing for you and helping you at least
allow you to get places, but they never lived that

(02:13:35):
themselves. They couldn't first hand tell
you how to VOD review for your opponent in your Smash
tournament just 'cause they didn't come from that
background. Yeah, I mean, my dad, he's
supposed to be now and everything, right?
But he wasn't like a he. He would let me, but he wasn't
like the hugest fan. Sure, I guess.
I mean, but you're. This makes sense.
You're in school as a kid and you're trying to go 10 hours.

(02:13:57):
Like to me it's so crazy that you said he let you go 10 hours
into America for a tournament. So sounds like he was a little
of an understanding, at least toa degree to to not be like hell
no, what the hell. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, No, it's just really cool to say.
And obviously it worked. I mean, he beat me.
I got weird. Like, dude, I don't know if you
ever get this, but I got like, weird.
I would try to do like Burn Knuckle and I actually get level

(02:14:19):
2. Oh yeah, in the middle.
That that input over that is so common.
I hate that dude. It's so like I I get it once in
a blue moon. I don't get it like super, super
often, but when it I feel like Iget it in the matter, in the
times that matter the most, right, That time, like I got it
like I got that input like two or three times or something by
accident. It's my fault at the end of the

(02:14:39):
day. Like it's just how it is, right?
Hopefully get better for next time, right.
But yeah, that was my tournament.
I got fourth highest placement at a Street Fighter tournament.
Yeah, 4th place, 200 CPT points.I mean, that puts you right now
ranked 20th in the world on the CPT leaderboard.
What was your feeling after this?
You're heading back home, getting on the plane like we're

(02:15:01):
like, wow, I'm there. Or is it still?
It sounds like you're a very process focused person.
Like you're not like these highsdon't really.
Yeah, I don't really impact you like.
About the points, yeah, I don't really, I don't really think
about the CPT points that often.I know everything is like Capcom
Cup and stuff, but I'm still right now I'm starting to, I'm
trying to focus on like what's in front of me and like just

(02:15:24):
trying to get better for like myown personal life and like just
getting better at the game and also going trying to work harder
in the concentration, right, because I don't know, I'm I'm
not going to deal with France. So there's still there's
guarantee that like we're kind of in like a weird like
offseason break period, at leastfor me.

(02:15:45):
So I'm just trying to focus on like the stuff that I can't work
with, like streaming, trying to work back on my YouTube again.
Although I do feel a little burnt from the game, like I feel
like I hope, I hope Steve Viper changes stuff like I and that's
really soon, right? So something to look forward to
at least, right. Yeah, I know I've been me
personally, I've been trying to I've actually been hitting the

(02:16:07):
gym a lot. Nice man.
You've been flexing a little on Twitter I've seen working.
On I'm still not that strong. I'm not that strong.
I'm really not that strong. I was actually just able to
bench like 1135 like in like consistent reps.
Hey, that's, that's what like recently.
That's a milestone, man. Like it is a milestone.

(02:16:27):
It is like. With fighting games, smashing
the PR thing, right you go on social media to see people like
15 year old kids repping 425 for18 reps that's just not real
life like real life you start from whatever your base is and
then every milestone matters. So yeah, exactly, if you're
there working on your personal life, working on your fitness
and working on your content creation, sounds like you're

(02:16:49):
focus on the process right now of just growing in all these
different domains. Yeah, I definitely do think that
it helps you become a better fighting game player overall.
Like it just, I mean, it just makes you feel better.
I feel like your reactions, likethe your way of like anything
that helps like your mental in some sort of like physical way,
like I think helps tremendously for, especially for a game like

(02:17:10):
Street Fighter Six where it's just the game is just so, I
don't know, it's just so you canbe really crazy sometimes,
right? Yeah, you can just lose
sometimes, but having that mental way to bring out that
stress I guess or just get stronger, another Ave. of
getting. Development.
Better getting. Yeah, I think that's one thing
that's tracked me to fitness as well, is if you stick with it

(02:17:34):
and you improve and find structure it, it yields results
over time. You put work in and you get
results out right. It's it's like a linear one to
one relationship. It takes time and there's
lagging results and indicators. So that's the part I think
people get tripped up on is we need instant gratification as
humans. But if you can start getting the
the routine going, you start to see those lagging results as an

(02:17:58):
indicator of, OK, I did put in the work and I got results out
of it. And I think with competition,
what happens is you plateau and it becomes very difficult to
feel like the work you're putting in is yielding results.
So I think that's a good thing for a while.
Yeah, I think that's a good Ave.you found 'cause you have
something else where like I'm putting in all this work in the

(02:18:18):
Street Fighter and then I get throw looped and I lose.
Was it even worth it? At least if I go to the gym I
know that if I put this work in I get this result out I think.
I have it. I think it calms that tilt
factor down because you have some sort of like I do work, I
get results and it's a lot more correlated.
Even though it does correlate infighting games, it says.
It can be hard to feel that sometimes, right?

(02:18:40):
And. You need to do sanity.
Yeah, I think it just helps withlike life, just this is overall
like life quality even outside of Street Fighter, of course.
I mean, I'm sure you were a little late, but yeah, this is
how I've been trying to trying to eat better.
You know, I think that's one of the hardest parts with growing
at the gym is trying to like count your calories and like,

(02:19:02):
because I'm, I'm trying to bulk right now, but I've been trying
to bulk for like years. You're one of those you under
eat. It's hard, it's hard.
It was weird. I was skinny for a while and
then I was overweight at some point when I was a kid and I
went back to extremely skinny and now I'm working.
I was working my way up. I think I'm like 170 right now,

(02:19:24):
so I'm trying to bulk to 180 andthen cut right, right.
OK, it might be another challenge of itself.
But yeah, I mean, you're learning how to manipulate your
body and, and, and understand your your calories and calories
out and grow from there. And I agree that's it's super
important for just balance in life, especially if you're doing
full time gaming. You got to get up from your
desk. Yeah.

(02:19:46):
You're an. Entrepreneur, basically.
So you have to set your own hours and you have to understand
how to get up from the desk, walk around, get exercise, take
care of yourself, and just find balance in all those avenues.
Because otherwise you could justbe completely consumed in front
of your computer your entire life.
Wake up, get on your computer, and then go back to sleep,
right? So finding the balance for the

(02:20:06):
long run I think is super important.
Yeah, that's just basically my life right now is trying to
focus on that, trying to get as good as I can, but also like
trying to balance content creation.
It's it's, it's a lot. But yeah, at the end of the day,
all I could do is try. I think you could do it and I, I
respect that you're trying to put some focus on concentration

(02:20:28):
because I do feel like as a, if you're a full time competitor, I
mean, I think it's required to. I'm a free agent.
I'm I'm also like I've been in this like E sports shit for so
long. Like I honestly, I think if
you're a pro player and you're not doing concentration, you're
just what are we doing here? Like, especially if you're a
free agent, like, it's like, youknow, got to put in some type of

(02:20:51):
work. There's no return from being
good and not number one. That's the problem.
So if you're a MENA Rd. it it it's OK.
You can be a full time player orif you like live in Japan maybe
and you're on a street footed league team potentially because
you're salaried. But anyone else, there's no
consistent income for being one of the best players.
You have to be the best player to get any kind of return.
So I think you're going about itthe right way.

(02:21:12):
Hopefully in the future that changes where more people can
just be salaried. I mean Japan is where they're
getting it done and also their content creation goes crazy.
I mean Kawano uploads a stream highlight and gets a million.
Views you saw that you saw that I watch his YouTube all the.
Time I just. Steve I for level 8.
Oh, I didn't see that video. On his YouTube.
I saw the clips of it but like I'm sure it has almost 1,000,000
views like anytime he. Kawano yeah, like 200 K,

(02:21:35):
something like that. And that's just usually just
stream highlights and he gets that almost instantly.
So like it's just ridiculous howpopular 400K360K, all those
videos are, are printing money for him, right?
So he is doing it right. And I think that's big in Japan.
So hopefully we can bring more of that to like the NA English
speaking audience and develop that here.

(02:21:56):
And it sounds like you're putting your work in to get that
done. God damn Kwan was popular.
I just like holy that. Could be you're the you're the,
you know, the Terry of the West right now, man.
Maybe that could be you keep trying that working all right,
but. Yeah, just gotta keep, just
gotta keep going. Any final words you have for the

(02:22:18):
people? I I do want to say personally,
thank you Riddles for hopping onthe podcast.
You've had a very interesting journey of covering a lot of
different domains, so I think it's a great conversation.
So thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm very honored to do this. Very glad.
Yeah, obviously, thank you. Thank you guys for supporting me
and what I do. I'm just going to just try my
best. Just you just gotta keep it

(02:22:39):
moving. Just gotta keep it moving.
Of course you gotta keep going, keep it moving.
All, all aspects of life, you know, personal passion, dreams,
just gotta, I'm sure many peoplelike just gotta keep it moving.
You know, even with even if lifethrows at, even with whatever
life throws at you, you know, you just gotta, just gotta keep
going. And you know, I and I appreciate

(02:22:59):
you for again, for inviting me as a long time, as like a long
time viewer. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure me
in like 2017, like 14 year old me would be like, well, I'm on
this podcast. They saw this moment right now.
You'd be like, wow, that's fucking crazy.
I mean, that's crazy for me to hear that man, that that's to
hear that maybe in some way I inspire to you and like these

(02:23:21):
days, you're definitely inspiring me.
I, I watch your game play all the time.
You're one of my favorite players.
I I, I'm always watching what you do in the world, the Street
Fighter and been setting your smash history as well.
It's been very inspiring to see your journey.
So thanks again for hopping on the podcast.
Appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thank you again. Have a good.
One peace, everybody. See ya.
Thank you for making it to the end of this episode of Trash.

(02:23:44):
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(02:24:05):
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