The esports Moment that Changed Fighting Games Forever

Daigo Umehara parrying every single kick of Justin Wong's Chun Li super in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike at Evo 2004 is one of the most iconic and impressive feats of video game skill ever caught on camera. But it's enduring legacy is more than just being a viral internet video.

To find out just how important this moment, Evo Moment 37, truly is in the big picture of the fighting game community, we talked with three FGC pros: James Chen, LI Joe, and Justin Wong himself. This is Pros React to Evo Moment 37.

#Gaming

[VashTheStampede]

“What’s Daigo doing?”
“He’s beginning to believe.”

[jinpei]

This moment is even more exceptional when you consider Daigo is performing the full parry in a crowded room with people screaming their heads off

[BearTheGrudge]

The crowd is always what sells this moment for me. You can hear them gradually realizing they are witnessing a legend.

[INCNetski]

It must always be inuciated: Daigo not only Parried the entire super, he optimized the counter.

[oscarcastillo]

"It's impossible"
Daigo: "no, it's necessary"

[emerald_lord]

Evo moment 37: First recorded usage of ultra instinct.

[Jlin]

"Let's go Justin"

Famous last words

[OhtaniEvolution]

This video should've mentioned another fact: No other combos could finish Justin.
Daigo finished him with the only combo that could've finished Justin. It was literally the perfect moment.

[legodawg]

I once saw someone that describe the seconds leading up to the moment, so I’m just gonna paraphrase it here:

Effectively, Daigo was playing risky, but he knew he could parry the super since he had done it earlier in the day in practice. There’s someone in the crowd yelling “don’t do it” because he had seen it before and knew how inconsistent it was. Chun li actually didn’t have enough meter to do her super, so daigo threw out a couple fireballs that were easy to parry so Justin could get the meter needed to super. That’s not playing a game. That’s playing the player

[MrFraiche]

4:20 Look how lightly Daigo is pressing the direction to parry. That is incredible focus and control.

[FumetsuGolf]

Justin is such a cool, easygoing guy. It's easy to breakdown a win, but it takes guts to break down your most notorious, viral loss. He'll always be one of the eSports legendary greats in my book.

[table]

"Let's go Justin"

Moments before disaster

[danielpagan]

Not only did he successfully completed the parry but he then was cold blooded enough to pull off the right combo to finish him off.

[ctr]

For those of you who don't know Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, PARRY's acceptance depends on the character's state and the length of the input. If you input a parrying move while on the ground, there will be 23 frames of inactivity before the next input is accepted.
You must aim for the "moment just before the move is received" to be successful.
The reason why Daigo is moving back and forth just before parrying is because he cannot continuously input forward.
After understanding these basic systems, Chun-Li's HOUYOKUSEN has only "one frame" of parrying input accepted after the activation animation. Also, with 17 attacks and variable attack timing, parrying all attacks is extremely difficult.
Daigo has been praised for succeeding in this highly difficult task at EVO, a major tournament (at the time, players were still playing without even headphones), in the midst of such a noisy venue.

[popsiwapat]

I'm so joyful to see people devoted themself so much in something til they become specialist in their way.

[alber.a]

1.- Daigo prepares the play fueling Justin’s power bar with a pair of Hadokens
2.- Daigo synchronizes movements with Chunli’s to get the correct direction when Justin’s starts his predictable super
3.- Daigo parries correctly the 17 hits, concentrating despite the crowd shouting and Justin mashing
4.- Daigo counter attacks with a winner combo

Everything in this play is SUBLIME👌🏻

[SuikodenGR]

As a 38 yr old, this NEVER EVER gets boring. What a great time that was 😁

[LampreyKisses]

One of those rare moments where the outcome of the tournament itself pales in comparison to a play in a single round.

[TarikA]

There won't be any recorded moment in video game history better than this. I always come back to this scene. It's just ... there are no words for it.

[zahar]

Capcom: we didn't even know people can do that