Evo Moment 37

"Evo Moment #37", or the "Daigo Parry", refers to a portion of a Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike match held at Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Evo 2004) between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong. During this match, Umehara made an unexpected come-back by parrying 15 consecutive hits of Wong's "Super Art" move while having only one pixel of vitality. Umehara subsequently won the match, though went on to lose the Grand Final against Kenji "KO" Obata. Evo Moment #37 is frequently described as the most iconic moment in competitive video gaming, having influenced the fighting game community strongly.

Background

The Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike finals of Evo 2004 took place at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California on August 1.^[1] Daigo "The Beast" Umehara and Justin Wong, two of the best Street Fighter players at the time, had never played against one another until that point.^[2] Despite this, the two were already known for having a supposed rivalry with each other due to their differences in gaming philosophies.^[3][4] Street Fighter was the only game to still be played on traditional arcade cabinets at this Evo, all other games being played on home consoles. Umehara and Wong met one another in the loser's finals of the tournament. Here, Umehara opted to play using Ken, while Wong picked Chun-Li.

Moment

In the final round of match 1, Umehara's Ken was down to his last pixel of vitality. At this point, any special attack would knock Umehara's character out if connected, since special attacks deal chip damage even when blocked. In an attempt to win the round, Wong attempted to hit Umehara's Ken with Chun-Li's multihit Super Art move. However, instead of avoiding it, Umehara chose to "Parry," a technique whereby an incoming attack is blocked without the player losing any health, but by doing so requires moving toward opponent's direction in the same time a hit lands,^[5] within four of thirty frames of the impact animation. After the move was launched, Umehara parried all 15 hits and went on to counter a final kick of Chun-Li in mid-air before launching a combo move himself and winning the match.^[2]

GamePro and Eurogamer pointed out how the moment was elevated by the "euphoric" reaction of the crowd, which erupting in cheers and shouts as Umehara was parrying Wong's moves and turning around the game.^[6][3] Umehara lost in the Grand Final to Kenji "KO" Obata.

Legacy

The one moment is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of video gaming. Being the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time, it has been compared to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice.^[8]

In an interview with John Guerrero of EventHubs, Justin Wong stated that he believed Evo Moment #37 may have helped "save" the fighting game community, which was getting less active at the time.^[9] Umehara gave a more in-depth account of the match in his 2016 autobiography, in which he explains how he briefly departed from the fighting game community afterwards.^[10]

The downloadable online version of 3rd Strike, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, features a challenge where players need to pull off the Daigo Parry.^[4] A parody of Evo Moment #37 was presented in the 2012 anime adaption of Acchi Kocchi.^[11] In 2014, Umehara and Wong held a rematch as a celebration of Evo Moment #37 ten years earlier, in which Umehara parry's Chun-Li's special move once again, though loses that round a few seconds later.^[12] Glenn Cravens wrote a self-published book titled EVO Moment 37 that year as well.^[8]

British Street Fighter player and longtime FGC member Ryan Hart notably pulled off Daigo's parry while not looking at the TV screen. ^[13]

References