Though he ultimately didn’t win, PGW|Hayao, thanks to his amazing Hugo plays and real life antics, became a fan favorite during the Street Fighter 3: Third Strike tournament occurring at Evo 2024. Many people have even begun calling one of his plays as being Evo Moment 38 which had him parrying a bunch of hits from Ken’s airborne EX Hurricane Kick followed by a devastating punish.
In response to all the hype surrounding Hayao’s performance at Evo 2024, Ryan Hart posted a clip featuring one of his matches against Hayao from 18 years ago. Needless to say, not much has actually changed with Hayao’s personality.
Once again, the Japanese player was using Hugo while Ryan Hart was playing as Ken in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. At roughly the same time, both players opted to just towards one another.
With the hope of thwarting any parry attempts, Ken went for an airborne EX Hurricane Kick, but Hayao was able to parry all three hits anyhow. Following this, he was then able to punish with Hugo’s body splash.
A repeat of this sequence happened just a little later into the clip. However, this time after hitting the body splash, Hayao instead opted for Hugo’s super art, which behaves like an unblockable command grab.
Similar to what we saw recently, Hayao began performing flips and contorting his body directly in front of the screen as Hugo’s super art animation played out. This prompted quite the response from the audience.
Check it all out below:
Hayao vs Ryan Hart 18 Years ago!
This is the best Hugo I have ever played and he was still doing all the troll antics way back then too
I’d never met him so I didn’t appreciate being trolled constantly mid tournament at the time but it was a good set. pic.twitter.com/2jRhbibxHm
— Ryan Hart (Prodigal Son) #EWC (@RyanJosephHart) July 27, 2024