Final EVO2K9 Matches: Justin Wong vs Daigo Umehara
If this Justin Wong vs Daigo Umehara match-up sounds familiar to you, it could be because of their recent bout at the GameStop Street Fighter IV National Tournament last April, but most likely you recognize the names from their much-linked and unforgettable EVO 2004 round.
Japanese professional gamer Daigo was victorious over his American rival in both encounters, so many were eager to see if Wong would be able to reverse his fortunes when the two met again at the Street Fighter IV grand finals at EVO 2009, taking place in Las Vegas over the weekend.
I won't spoil the winner, but you can watch the video captured from Ustream.TV's live coverage for the final eight minutes of their match and of the show. Notice that the footage starts with the third fight in a best out of five match, with the score tied 1-1. Umehara is playing as Ryu, while Wong, who began the match with Abel, switched to Balrog for the rest of the bout.
Several great photographs shot by Terry Ng during their match:
Ryan "gootecks" Gutierrez, who you might remember from the I Got Next documentary, also had an interesting interview with the champion afterwards:
Comments
I watched this stream live, and it was a blast, Seth Killian is a great commentator and the matches were all exciting stuff! Truly a spectator sport, but I suspect you'd need to know the game fairly well to enjoy it.
Small correction: Justin usually picks Rufus, but he started with Abel against Daigo in the final. He chose Rufus at Gamestop and lost so tried Abel in their first Evo finals matchup but lost again. This knocked him into the loser's bracket so to beat Daigo he had to beat him in one best of 5 match, and then do it again.
Posted by: EvilHayama | July 20, 2009 4:48 PM