EVO Blunder Upsets Higher Powers
EVO 2019 hosted the Tekken 7 Grand Finals recently and saw the tournament organisers make something of a mistake in doing what they do best. The hosts, who didn’t intend to do so, upset Bandai Namco in what they thought was a really cool idea and perhaps a little bit of a joke, during the competition.
Just before the finals of the Tekken 7 tournament, EVO featured a short video with the voice of the Metal Gear protagonist, David Hayter. The famed voice actor made a mention of it on Twitter, stating that EVO didn’t contact him, nor Konami, and asked them to “not use my voice to promote other games. Ever.”
Since then, EVO has apologised for the short video, stating that it was not an official release from Bandai Namco, Tekken publishers, and it was something that came to them as their idea of a little joke. It was never supposed to imply anything and was done of their own accord.
Gamers, being gamers, automatically assumed that when the video aired, it was some kind of cross-over or perhaps a mention that Solid Snake may become a feature in the next Tekken or perhaps part of a Tekken DLC. This is not the case, although maybe it should be…
Perhaps something that should have been an even more popular story, was the meteoric rise of Pakistan player Arslan ‘Arslan_Ash’ Siddique, who went on to win the competition with Kazumi seemingly, against all odds. The 23-year-old made his way into the semi-finals, taking down the winner of last year’s EVO Japan 2018, Jae-Min ‘Knee’ Bae in a 2-1 content, making all it further and beating the winners’ bracket final player, the American, Hoa ‘Anakin’ Luu in a clean 3-0 sweep.
Respect to Bae though, as he was knocked down into the Losers’ Round 2 bracket and fought his way up from there making it right back into the grand finals, where Siddique got the best of him a 3-2 series. Bae did a character change up right at the last end to pull his second game back, switching from Kazuya to Devil Jin, but Saddique’s Kazumi ended up being too strong.
Saddique’s performance isn’t just a once off though, because he also finished top of EVO Japan 2019, beating Tekken’s finest. He has also placed 1st in the TGU x SEA Major Thailand and the OUG Tournament 2018. This is nothing short of a huge achievement for the player, not just because he has been able to maintain such a level of play for so long in a game, but also because he struggles to get visas for countries like the US and Japan because he’s from Pakistan.
He is also the first Tekken player to win both EVO Japan and EVO Vegas in the same year, and with the Tekken World Tour Championship approaching in December, Saddique will look to make his year a triple crown year.
The final EVO 2019 Tekken 7 results were:
- Arslan ‘Arslan_Ash’ Siddique
- Jae-Min ‘Knee’ Bae
- Hoa ‘Anakin’ Luu
