Evo 2024 Street Fighter 6 champion Victor “PunkDaGod” Woodley's preemptive celebration at the Esports World Cup could end up costing him thousands of dollars. The Cammy main had all but secured a massive win against legendary SNK player and Street Fighter extraordinare Zeng "Xiao Hai" Zhuojun, only for him to realize a tad too late that the deed was not done, giving the Chinese player the edge in a crucial moment during their first phase match.
Allow me to give you more context. Both players were competing in the opening match of Group E at the Esports World Cup. The winner was set to advance to a winner’s qualifier match, with the possibility of earning a direct spot in the Top 16 phase of the tournament, thereby skipping a second group phase.
Big money is on the line, with the winner set to take home $250k, so the stakes couldn’t be higher. Punk was 2-0 on the set against Xiao Hai. The Mai main would even things out, giving fans their money’s worth: final game, final round, a 2-2 slobber knocker.
Punk bet it all on an OD Hooligan command grab. A relatively easy-to-interrupt special move, especially at the highest level of play, where pros have the awareness to not fall for gimmicks. Still, Punk landed it and seemed to have the set in the bag. Then, tragedy struck
The American player popped off too early. Xiao Hai lived with a single pixel of health. While Punk managed to barely sit back down in time to continue playing, you could clearly tell that he was flustered by the situation, doing a very predictable jump which was caught by a clean anti-air from Xiao Hai.
Rubbing salt on an already painful wound is the fact that Punk would have won the set if he had done a much simpler conversion out of the command grab: instead of going for an OD follow-up to the Hooligan command grab, had Punk just gone into level 3 Critical Art, he would’ve won. Due to the scaling imposed by the OD moves, Xiao Hai lived.
This isn’t the first time Punk’s premature pop-offs have cost him. In a set against NoahTheProdigy, the FlyQuest-sponsored player got up from his chair, thinking a level 2 super had given him the victory. To his misfortune, he once again miscalculated Cammy’s damage. Lucky for him, Punk would close out that set 3-1.
Now, Punk will have to face Tachikawa to keep his EWC hopes alive. If he wins, then Kakeru awaits, as they’ll fight for qualification to phase 2. Meanwhile, Xiao Hai managed to beat Kakeru in order to comfortably secure a Top 16 spot, skipping all the pressure that comes with being in the loser’s bracket.
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