There’s been no shortage of great action to be found at CEO 2023 this past weekend, and the most intense set for Street Fighter 6 may have taken place just before top 8.
Legendary multi-game champion Justin Wong faced off with the consistent pro 00|Phenom in the loser’s bracket to determine who would advance on to the finals ring, which completely shifted gears after a wrong Super Art changed the tides of battle.
Justin came out looking strong and controlled the pace of the matches through almost the whole set, leading to much more patient and footsie-focused games than you’d probably expect from a Cammy vs. Ken matchup.
The longtime competitor would take the first game in two straight rounds and even closed things out with a whiff punish level 3 Super to show that he’s still got the reactions.
Phenom was never fully out of it, but Justin looked to be in charge and reached set point while looking to advance against one of the best players in Europe though things would not go as planned.
Wong actually got the hit confirm into Drive Rush combo, which should have spelt the end of the set, except Justin canceled into the level 1 Super instead of the level 3.
This left Phenom alive with a sliver of health but JWong in burnout, and the Ken player would retaliate with his own Critical Art followed by a meaty Drive Rush to get his first round.
Game two would come down to just 6 seconds left on the timer with Phenom, fighting for his tournament life, getting the perfect jab check to get a game on the board.
Justin would strike back, however, and go back up to set point in game three with a pretty commanding lead after using Drive Reversal to get out of the corner and the walk up shimmy to get the last hit.
Phenom immediately fires back though and goes into his level 3 to get the life lead before tying things up yet again with the perfectly-spacd sweep.
Spoilers for the end of the set ahead.
Unfortunately, it seemed like Justin may have run out of gas in the final round, as Phenom was able to take control and get the perfect to take the win and move on.
Wong would take to Twitter and provide a rather short explanation as to what happened.
“Fat finger the button lmao,” wrote JWong, so at least he didn’t seem to be taking the loss that hard.
Fat finger the button lmao
— Justin Wong (@JWonggg) June 25, 2023
Justin Wong would still have himself an impressive and fantastic weekend, however, considering he took first place in not just Breakers Revenge, not just Capcom vs. SNK 2 but Street Fighter 3: Third Strike as well.
This was on top of running his own booth at CEO to record videos for his YouTube channel as well as hitting the commentary desk, so the legend got a ton done and finished 13th in SF6 out of over 1,000 players.
My #CEO2023 is over! Had a blast running the content booth and can’t wait to show it to y’all
Had a blast commentating SF6 as well
Also won some stuff
???? 3S
???? CVS2
???? Breakers
I am a scrub at SF6!See y’all at the next one pic.twitter.com/ZXM2vkcXAo
— Justin Wong (@JWonggg) June 25, 2023
Even after the amazing comeback, Phenom would unfortunately fall in the next set against Nephew in 2-1 fashion and finish the weekend out in 9th place.
Now we’ll see if the top 8 can give us a set more intense than this in one of Street Fighter 6’s first big majors since it released earlier this month.