5 hours ago
4
You surely could marque a lawsuit for MenaRD being the champion Street Fighter 6 subordinate successful the satellite close now. His triumph astatine Sunday's Evolution Championship Series successful Las Vegas brings him up to 4 full Evo wins, with 2 back-to-back wins astatine Evo successful Las Vegas (2025-2026) and 2 back-to-back wins astatine Evo Japan (2024-2025). And portion his Blanka looked ascendant passim the tournament, 1 of the much absorbing stories that came retired of the Street Fighter 6 apical 8 was the information that successful his astir important matches, Mena opted against utilizing the quality that he's astir good known for.
In Winners Semis, Mena started disconnected by utilizing M. Bison, going 2-2 with Shigematsu's Blanka. After swapping to Blanka for the reflector lucifer successful the deciding game, Mena won a hard fought crippled that ended up going to the last round, sending Shigematsu down to the losers bracket.
Shigematsu wouldn't beryllium denied his runback however, arsenic helium ended up warring his mode done Dogura, Craime, and Kilzyou to scope Grand Finals for what we each assumed would beryllium a Blanka vs Blanka reflector match, close from the start. But erstwhile again, Mena opted for the Bison, and played retired the full archetypal acceptable with the character. Shigematsu ended up resetting the bracket against Mena's Bison with a people of 3 games to one, and definite enough, aft the reset Mena yet decided to bring retired the Blanka. It was abbreviated enactment from determination arsenic Mena took adjacent acceptable 3-0, winning his 4th Evo Championship.
My Bison really produced amended results against the Blanka players that I practiced with.“
But wherefore did helium determine to take Bison successful the archetypal place? After the match, Mena responded to the question by saying, "Honestly, it was a substance of Shigematsu [being] a teammate with different apical Blanka subordinate from Japan called Takagi. So I took that into relationship and I had assurance successful my Bison aft practice. And my Bison really produced amended results against the Blanka players that I practiced with. But I besides had the suspicion that his benignant was a small spot different. A small much aggressive, and had a batch of tricks."
After the adjacent telephone successful Winner's Semi's, Mena inactive felt similar helium could person won with Bison, and since helium was connected the winner's broadside of Grand Finals, helium could hazard losing a set, truthful helium decided to effort it again. But aft Shigematsu took the archetypal acceptable disconnected him, helium realized that helium had to power to his breadstuff and butter.
Mena credits his grooming successful Japan arsenic being precise adjuvant successful his betterment arsenic a player. "I'm staying successful Japan close now. I'm playing successful the Street Fighter League. My teammates successful the Zeta Division: Momochi, Higuchi, and Yamaguchi, they're each astonishing players and I spot them each day."
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial shaper astatine IGN. You tin find him connected twitter @JurassicRabbit
.png)
English (CA) · 
English (US) · 
Spanish (MX) ·