Evo 2024 is in the books, and this year's edition of the biggest event in fighting games brought plenty of incredible stories and competitive action. But the undeniable highlight of the weekend was a moment in a Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike tournament that's already being hailed as Evo Moment 38, instantly catapulting a player who was already legendary in the scene to a much more widespread audience. That player goes by Hayao, and he instantly won the hearts of everyone watching the 3rd Strike Top Six with his showmanship and impressive Hugo play.
Hayao elected to forgo a chair for the tournament in favor of kneeling in front of his fight stick - or, in one case, literally flexing by doing a perfect split through character select. His celebratory dances were also extremely endearing. But the big moment everyone's talking about came in the quarterfinal of the losers side of the double-elimination bracket.
Here, opponent FrankieBFG's Ken had brought Hayao's Hugo down to a single pixel's worth of health. FrankieBFG brought out a mid-air super that was sure to knock out Hayao, but Hayao countered with a series of perfect parries - defensive inputs that require absurdly precise timing to pull off. Hayao parried every single hit of that super move and came back to win the match.
If you want a more detailed breakdown of what happened, there's an excellent Twitter thread explaining all the nuance . The match instantly earned the moniker of Evo Moment 38 , in reference to the legendar.