Ah, the perfect time for a look back at what’s been going on in fighting game esports. Honestly, the amount of stuff that’s been going on has been overwhelming, but I think I’ve narrowed it down to some of the best stuff.

Over in Japan, we saw Evo and Kagaribi, two of the biggest events of the year so far. We also have a ton of tourneys on the way, including Evo Las Vegas, Supernova, and Port Priority. And everything in between.

And through it all, we have plenty of salt, drama, wholesomeness, and insane skill. Your typical FGC tournament stuff.

Evo Japan’s registration was quite telling. Street Fighter 6 had tons of entrants, but Tekken 8, Guilty Gear -Strive-, and the other titles were so low that I’m surprised this event even held as much weight as it did for those scenes. It just goes to show how popular Street Fighter is in the FGC right now, although the fans have plenty of complaints with how Capcom is handling things.

Well, Evo Japan’s Street Fighter 6 tourney is now the Guinness World Record holder for “most participants in a single fighting game tournament.” The record was previously 7,083, but Evo Japan’s Street Fighter 6 tourney had 7,168 entrants. It shows just how big the SF6 scene is in Japan.

Eisuke “Yamaguchi” Yamaguchi was the winner of the massive tournament, beating Victor “Punk” Woodley to become the champion of the first-ever Evo he ever attended.

Speaking of Punk, his journey to the Grand Finals was pretty convincing. However, he had a few standout moments.

During a dominant performance against Higuchi Kojiro in the Loser’s Finals, Punk let loose some rapid-paced teabags before KO’ing his opponent. The Japanese audience loved it.

Reads one translated tweet: “What the heck, the Punk who’s back is the one from Street Fighter 5 who was so ridiculously strong he kept up the taunt-heavy playstyle and no one could stop him…!”

While some felt that Punk’s teabagging was disrespectful, others pointed out that this is just who he is and what he is loved for. Punk has always been a player that is over-the-top, edgy, and chaotic. It’s what makes his performance even more entertaining.

“Punk’s taunting Higuchi with squats felt so full of pro wrestling vibes that I cracked up, but it seems to have gotten a pretty bad reputation?” another Japanese fan said. “Online, when some not-that-strong guy does it to an anonymous opponent, it’s total trash, but on the Evo Japan stage, in a match between pro-level CC class players, going all out with a mental attack knowing full well it’ll draw criticism — isn’t that not something to completely dismiss?

“Of course, I’m not recommending it.”

We’re not done with Punk just yet. While Punk ended up in second at Evo Japan’s massive Street Fighter 6 tournament, he was very satisfied with the weekend overall. At one point, he proposed to his girlfriend, who said yes!

He tweeted: “I still got the perfect prize: fiancé and Esports World Cup qualification!”

However, there was a bit of drama over the proposal. Because of course there was. This is the FGC, after all. A lot of people pointed out that the proposal was really lame and simple, with Punk proposing in front of the bathrooms backstage.

The back-and-forth was hilarious:

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community has Steve fatigue. Ever since the Minecraft character was added as DLC, he’s been widely hated in the competitive community. He’s considered overpowered with a lot of game-breaking mechanics. And he’s boring as s*** to watch.

For the past few years, Top 8’s have been taken over by teenagers getting carried by Steve. And it has ruined a lot of the hype and storylines of the tournament. Plus, the matches are a snooze-fest. All around buzzkill.

Despite this, tournament organizers haven’t been willing to ban the character. Nintendo even warned that tournaments can’t. Not sure what that was about. It’s not like they even care about esports.

Anyway, Supernova announced its return recently — and it’s bringing an exciting ruleset along with it. The Steve Stage Clause: “If one player has chosen Steve when their opponent has not, previous stage selection procedure is ignored and the player that has not selected Steve will choose the stage to play on from any legal stage.”

The Smash community has largely praised this rule, with Melee God Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma saying it’s “tremendous progress.”

He wrote: “Steve mains should be allowed to play, but to pretend that the character isn’t grossly overpowered is also in bad faith. This slight nerf to Steve seems to be a fair compromise to me.”

Some Smash players pointed out that Japan has been begging for Steve to be banned for years. They have been praising Supernova’s ruling on the broken character. With players all over the world loving Supernova’s innovative rules, maybe it will carry over to other Majors.

Arslan Ash is the undisputed best Tekken 8 player in the world. He has basically won every Evo and every other major the past few years. He moved to Japan to get even more focused on Tekken, if that’s even possible.

With seven Evo titles under his belt, Arslan Ash was a sure win for Evo Japan. However, he ended up in 9th place.

The biggest mistake seems to be playing Zafina. This was a new choice for Arslan Ash, and it didn’t seem to pay off. However, others believe that moving to Japan has made Arslan Ash worse at the game.

Some pointed to his underwhelming performance at his showmatch ahead of Evo against Yuta “Chikurin” Take. Chikurin beat Arslan Ash to the first-to-10, which was not the expected outcome. Then he got 9th at Evo. One fan asked him if he was still getting as much practice against good competitors over in Japan as he did in Pakistan.

Hey, you can’t be #1 every single second. I think it’s too early to say if he’s truly slipping.

Ultimate prodigy Edgar “Sparg0” Valdez had a great showing at Kagaribi #15. He ended up in third place, but he left the tourney with the best moment of the weekend.

While competing against Doramigi, a Japanese Min Min player that’s often considered the current best in the world, Sparg0 pulled off one of the craziest moments of all time.

The two were 1-1, onto the final round. Sparg0, playing Cloud, got Doramigi from three lives to zero in under one minute. He never let up, juggling Min Min around relentlessly. His ledge guarding was unhinged, spiking ever so perfectly. It was a sight to see.

Many are now calling him the GOAT. Of course, there were haters as well. Some said that Min Min was just playing bad, claiming Cloud was only doing above-average Cloud play. Wow, y’all some haters, for real.

After the tournament, Sparg0 wrote: “I wanted to win but still I’m super proud of my performance, I felt my mind blocked all year, but I didn’t want to give up, I prepared so much for this tournament, and I’m so happy to know I can still win!”

I’m shocked it has taken this long, but Super Smash Bros. Melee is at Port Priority! The event, Port Priority: DX, will take place in Seattle, Washington in November.

Melee will be featured alongside Smash 64 and Rivals II. There will also be vendors and side events, like Melee, Rivals, and 64 Doubles.

Seeing Melee pop up at more events is awesome. The Melee scene has survived (and thrived) all these years with grit and passion alone. There’s no money in it, so to see another event give the Melee scene a chance is awesome.