One of the most famous esports moments in history happened way back in 2004 at Evo, gaming’s biggest fighting game tournament. Two legendary Street Fighter players, Justin Wong playing Chun-Li and Daigo Umehara as Ken, were duking it out. Just as it seemed Wong was going to take the round with a souped-up move, Daigo, with one pixel of health, parried 15 hits and came back for the win. Most players would have just died, especially under such pressure.
Now in January 2022, Wong was able to relive that experience nearly 18 years later, but with another player entirely and live on Twitch, for another audience to experience in real time.
Wong was facing off against a player named Capge in retro fighting game, Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Both Capge and Wong went back and forth over a handful of rounds, but at around 28 minutes into Wong’s Twitch stream, there was some serious déjà vu. Once again, Ken came back against a flurry of Chun-Li kicks by unleashing a string of parries with only a pixel of health to spare.
“You think you Daigo? You ain’t Daigo,” said Wong as Ken unleashed the parries. “Oh, he Daigo! He Daigo,” added Wong as he lost the round in exactly the same way he did 18 years ago, pretty much.
As Event Hubs points out about this latest Daigo-like parry, “While it may not have taken place in front of hundreds of screaming FGC heads at Evo, managing to pull off the Daigo Parry in full online is still an impressive feat for anybody— let alone to do it to Wong again.”
“Bro, that’s not scripted,” said Wong after the fight. “That’s not scripted. He Daigo’d me.”
Capge is a talented Japanese player (check out some of Capge’s YouTube clips here) and not just some rando. But it’s not clear who he is.
“That’s crazy, bro. I can’t believe it,” continued Wong. “This might be Daigo.” Wong ended up winning the match, taking a moment to acknowledge that he didn’t think he was going to have an intense fight today. Heck, I didn’t think we’d get to relive Evo Moment 37 with Wong and a mysterious player named Capge.
(No, seriously. Who’s Capge?)
For more, follow Wong on Twitter and check out his Twitch channel.