There was no shortage of great action to be found at CEO 2023 this past weekend, and Street Fighter 6’s most intense blockbuster may have happened just before the top 8.
Take on legendary multi-game champion Justin Wong, consistent professional 00| Venom is in the losers bracket to decide who advances to the finals ring, which completely changed gears after a misguided Super Art changed the tide of the battle.
Justin came out looking strong and controlled the pace of matches through nearly the entire set, resulting in more games focused on patience and footwork than you’d probably expect from a Kami vs. Kane match.
The longtime contender would take the first match in two straight rounds and even ended things with a Level 3 Super punishing puff to show he still had the reflexes.
Venom never quite got out of it, but Justin appeared to be in charge and hit a point as he looked to get ahead against one of the best players in Europe even though things wouldn’t go as planned.
Wong actually got confirmation of the hit in the Drive Rush combo, which was supposed to spell the end of the combo, except Justin got canceled into a Level 1 Super instead of a Level 3.
This left Phenom alive with little health but JWong is on exhaustion, and player Ken will retaliate with his Critical Art followed by a Drive Rush to get his first round.
Game two will only be down to 6 seconds on the timer with Phenom, fighting for his life in the tournament, and getting a perfect check to get a game on the board.
However, Justin was attacking, coming back to the point in game three with a nice lead lead after using the Drive Reversal to get out of the corner and walk uphill to get the final hit.
Phenom immediately takes off though as he goes down to his level 3 to get a life before tying things up again by wiping out the spacd completely.
spoilers to the end of the next set.
Unfortunately, Justin seemed to run out of gas in the final round, as Phenom was able to take control and get the perfect run to take the win and move on.
Wong will take to Twitter and give a fairly brief explanation of what happened.
“Finger missed the button lmao,” JWong wrote, so at least he didn’t seem to take the loss that hard.
Fat finger on the lmao button
– Justin Wong (@JWonggg) June 25, 2023
Justin Wong is still going to have a great, great weekend, however, considering he took first place in not only Breakers Revenge, not just Capcom vs. SNK 2 but Street Fighter 3: Third Strike as well.
This was in addition to running his own booth at the CEO’s to record videos of him YouTube channel In addition to hitting the commentary desk, the legend has accomplished a lot and finished 13th in SF6 out of 1,000+ players.
for me #CEO2023 I finish! Had a blast running the content booth and I can’t wait to show it to all of you
It was a blast to get stuck on SF6, too
He also won a few things
🥇 3s
🥇 CVS2
🥇 Breakers
I rub in SF6!See you all in the next one pic.twitter.com/ZXM2vkcXAo
– Justin Wong (@JWonggg) June 25, 2023
Even after the amazing comeback, Venom would unfortunately fall in the next set against Nevo in a 2-1 fashion and finish the weekend in ninth place.
Now we’ll see if the top eight can give us a more intense combo than that in one of Street Fighter 6’s first big hits since its release earlier this month.
