Hayao’s insane parry and punish is being referred to as Evo Moment 38
The massive, monumental Evo 2024 weekend is now over and we can all collectively take a much needed exhalation. This event was truly another magical one for the books, bringing viewers all over the world and those in attendance a spectacular show that was packed to the brim with incredible fighting game action, cosplay, announcements, and everything else a fighting game fan could ever want.
It’s really hard to create a moment during a weekend like the one we just saw that stands out above all the rest, but from the looks of it, PGW|Hayao might have done exactly that. The Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Hugo player was an absolute phenom all weekend, but one play in particular during the Third Strike finals is now being considered by many fans as the next iconic and historic Evo Moment with many referring to it as “Evo Moment #38.”
Now, I will preface this article by saying that there were a ton of incredible moments that we witnessed at Evo 2024 throughout the action-packed weekend. Things like FLY|Punk finally winning an Evo and having a much deserved emotional celebration, SonicFox taking Mortal Kombat 1’s first appearance at the worldwide event, and TM|Arslan Ash becoming a five-time Evo champion by securing the gold in Tekken 8 were all outstanding feats and deserve every bit of time they spend in the spotlight.
However, when it comes to a single play in-game that had the entire community staring with jaws dropped, this honor has to go to Hayao’s unbelievable parry and punish against FrankieBFG in Third Strike’s losers quarterfinals.
To begin explaining how truly amazing this whole thing was, let us first point out the fact that Street Fighter 3: Third Strike was initially released on May 12, 1999. This 25-year-old title is, obviously, not a modern competitive fighting game, but its legacy and draw, as well as it being its 25th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the iconic Evo Moment 37 lead to it securing a spot on this year’s main Evo 2024 games line up.
Third Strike has a long, storied history at Evo, and the fighting game community’s most memorable and iconic moment easily comes from those two things overlapping. Evo Moment 37, for the uninitiated, recalls the remarkable instance during Evo 2004’s Street Fighter 3: Third Strike competition where fighting game legends Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara clashed and the latter pulled off a parry and punish on a level that had never been seen on that grand of a stage before.
After seeing Hayao’s incredible performance this weekend, it is no surprise why many fans are not only comparing the moment we’re highlighting today to Evo Moment 37, but also why they’re saying it deserves to be the next official historic Evo Moment.
To get fully caught up on all of Hayao’s antics from Evo 2024, be sure to read our previous story where we detail the Hugo player’s amazing run. The moment we’re taking a closer look at was one we highlighted in that story, but today we’re going to discuss what it is exactly that makes this particular play so powerful and why fans are responding to it with such fervor.
The Street Fighter 3: Third Strike losers quarterfinal match up saw Hayao from Japan taking on FrankieBFG from the United States in a heated battle to decide who would hang on to their tournament life and who would go home at fifth place. Hayao rocked Hugo for the entirety of the tournament, while Frankie had Ken locked and loaded.
In Third Strike, Ken is easily considered one of the strongest characters in the game often placed in S rank and in the rung just below the absolute cream of the crop — Chun-Li and Yun. Hugo, on the other hand, is widely considered to be on the lower end of the tier list, though character specialists have proven that he can do real damage in the right hands.
Hayao indeed has said right hands, and in the fourth and final game of the set with Frankie, the grappler player demonstrated impeccable skill and knowledge.
“WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?” #Evo2024 pic.twitter.com/FKlprooTFT
— Evo (@Evo) July 21, 2024
The clip starts with Frankie pelting Hayao with confirm into a super that doesn’t quite KO the Hugo player, but leaves only a small chunk of health left. The two competitors, now both fairly low on health, played a patient game following this attack that saw some bobbing and weaving in and out of each other’s ranges before Frankie checked Hayao with a quick air-to-air to not only knock the grappler back, but leave Hugo with literally a pixel of health that can’t even be seen by the human eye.
Much like Evo Moment 37, once again we have a situation where a player has a magic pixel of health left, and just a small bit of chip damage will be enough to close it out and secure the game. Also like said moment, we see Ken involved here again, only this time he is getting a taste of his own medicine.
After being knocked back, Hayao advances again with a forward dash then a jump forward, and then proceeds to make an absolutely phenomenal read on the opponent. Meeting Frankie in the air with the jump, Hayao knows that the Ken player is going to attempt an EX air Hurricane Kick, and still surviving on just a magic pixel of health attempts to parry all four airborne hits of the special move and succeeds.
It is worth pointing out that in order to perform a parry in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, you have to press forward on your controller within a very small window of the attack making contact with you. This literally means that Hayao was pressing forward into the four hits of the Hurricane Kick, and had any one of those parries been improperly timed, the Hugo player would have lost then and there.
Simply parrying that maneuver at that exact moment in time with that little health left is already impressive enough, and had Hayao just landed back on the ground and continued the fight, fans still would have been highlighting and talking about this play. But that’s not what happened.
As if using future sight, Hayao was completely ready and parried the four hits, then hit a big cross up body splash on a now grounded Ken. This lead to a full combo into EX Lariat, which left Frankie with about 2% health, and still, this unbelievable moment isn’t over yet.
Seemingly in an attempt to top what just happened, Hayao set up the okizeme situation with a forward dash and a walk forward to get right on top of Ken as he woke up. Then Hayao went for the absolute brain-melter in using Hugo’s standing heavy kick — a normal attack that is widely considered useless by players — to hop over Frankie’s wake up super attempt and make it whiff entirely.
With Ken kicking into the abyss, Hayao was able to recover from the normal, perform another EX Lariat, and run across the screen with the big attack before Ken could recover. And just like that, Hayao won the game and the set, moving on to fight another round and staving off fifth place.
The official Evo Twitter account shared the moment just after it happened and even wrote, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?” as the caption. Both Justin Wong and Vicious, who were commentating the match, were also notably blown away by the play and yelling at the top of their lungs in disbelief.
Justin Wong, being the veteran and professional that he is, added further context on the fly as to what exactly made that play so special. “Do you understand?! That is a worthless button! That button is so worthless! But he was able to make it useful in a very clutch, crazy scenario,” Justin said about Hugo’s standing heavy kick and Hayao.
And as if by serendipity or stars aligning, how wonderful is it that one of the players who lived through Evo Moment 37 was there to not only witness, but commentate the match where the potential Evo Moment 38 happened?
It’s moments like these that remind us what fighting games are all about. The legacy, the hype, the skill, the lore, the godlike ability, and the hours upon hours of hard work paying off in real time in a packed room on a monumental stage at the world’s largest open-bracket fighting game tournament with thousands of people watching.
We truly hope the folks at Evo grant Hayao and this incredible Third Strike moment an official Evo Moment title.
Here are some of the reactions from the people declaring Hayao’s sensational play an unofficial Evo Moment.
EVO MOMENT 38
— Anil Das-Gupta | $NOOB (@_AnilDG) July 21, 2024
Okay,
What Evo moment this? #Evo2024— Mgs2master2 (@mgs2master2) July 21, 2024
I can finally say I was around an EVO moment and it was this one this was too hype!!
— 桜 Saki Sakura 桜 (@SakiSakuraTV) July 21, 2024
And that moment happens again pic.twitter.com/xoficWu197
— METAGOONS (@MetaGoons) July 22, 2024