Two titans of Street Fighter 5 clashed in Mandalay Bay, one on an undefeated streak and the other pressing on through the gauntlet of the loser’s bracket. After a bracket reset, longtime Street Fighter pro Tokido beat Punk 3-0 to take home the Evo 2017 championship trophy.
Victor “Punk” Woodley came into the top eight finals from the winner’s side, on a legendary tear through the Street Fighter 5 tournament. Woodley had dropped Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi into the loser’s side of the bracket, where he played through some of Street Fighter‘s toughest to earn a second shot at The Alpha.
Taniguchi on Akuma and Woodley on Karin, the two seemed to trade blow-for-blow, both playing crisp Street Fighter under the main stage lights. Each dash and throw was carefully calculated, as Taniguchi worked towards a bracket reset and Woodley was hard-pressed to maintain his lead.
The tension built up to a game four where both played a tense game of footsies on slivers of health. One misstep from Woodley into a fireball ended the round, and Taniguchi reset the bracket, starting up a fresh first-to-three and either player’s tournament to win.
Momentum in his favour, Taniguchi landed a perfect knockout on Woodley in the next game, and it looked like the match was slipping away from Punk. It ramped up more and more to a 2-0 lead for Tokido, putting Woodley on tournament point with a Raging Demon super.
One round from the win, Woodley staved off Taniguchi for a moment but couldn’t stop the onslaught. With a corner combo, Taniguchi finished the fight and secured his first Street Fighter 5 championship.
If you want to watch the whole grand finals, you can check them out on Twitch here.
Comments
One response to “Tokido Battles Back Through Losers Bracket To Win Evo Street Fighter 5 Championship”
Evo was so good this year and it is getting so big! It was good to see Tokido take out the title as he has been working at it for a while now. One of the best fights for Sfv I watched was fchamp vs Tokido.
I didn’t have much respect for Punk leading up to Evo given his antics but have found I do now after Evo and that last battle. Will be interesting to see how he goes next year. He is only 18 years old and already at that skill level!