Evo Moment 37

About

Evo Moment 37, sometimes referred to as the "Daigo Parry," refers to a play during the first game of the loser's finals of Street Fighter III: Third Strike at the 2004 Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas. The play, in which Daigo Umehara successfully parried Justin Wong's super art and amounted a comeback is widely seen as one of the most iconic moments in the history of competitive gaming.

Origin

On August 1st, 2004, on the last day of the 2004 Evolution Championship Series, a tournament dedicated to fighting video games, Street Fighter competitors Daigo Umehara of Japan and Justin Wong of the United States met in the loser's finals of the Street Fighter III: Third Strike event. While having the life lead in the 3rd round of game 1, Wong, using the character Chun-Li, attempts a super art attack against Umehara, using Ken, to seal out the match to take game 1 of the set. However, Umehara successfully parries every single hit of the super art and performs his own super art on Wong, taking the first game of the set, to rapturous applause from the crowd (shown below).

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Daigo's play against Justin Wong was designated as "EVO Moment 37" by tournament organizer and ring announcer Ben Cureton, assigning a random digit to the moment, signifying that there have been multiple amazing moments in the history of the Evolution Championship Series and for viewers to not miss out on the upcoming tournament the following year.^[3] EVO Moment 37 was covered in Eurogamer's "The Best of YouTube"^[1] on August 31st, 2006, listed at number 1 on the list. The moment was also covered by ESPN^[2] on August 26th, 2016, in a piece reflecting on the legacy of the moment itself and the impact on the fighting game community at large, along with the moment being documented into a book titled "Evo Moment 37: One of the Most Famous Moments in Competitive Gaming History" by Glenn Cravens.

On November 23rd, 2014, at Moment 37 Reloaded, a Street Fighter tournament held in Pomona, California, Justin Wong, and Daigo Umehara met again in an exhibition match of Third Strike, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the iconic moment. Despite Daigo losing the match, he was able to pull off the full parry and super art combination once again on Justin Wong (shown below).

Capcom acknowledged the moment in an SFV video published August 28th, 2015 (shown below, left) and referenced it in Chun-Li's critical attack in Street Fighter V (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External Links

^[1] Eurogamer

^[2] ESPN

^[3] Wikipedia – Evo Moment 37