Evo 2004

The 2004 Evolution Championship Series (commonly referred to as Evo 2004 or EVO 2004) was a fighting game event held at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Southern California on July 29 to August 1. The event featured nine fighting games on the main lineup, including Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. While in previous Evolution events all competitions were held on arcade machines, most tournaments at Evo 2004 were played on video game consoles.

2004 Evolution Championship Series
Tournament information
LocationPomona, California, United States
DatesJuly 29–August 1
Tournament
format(s)
Round-robin/Double elimination
Venue(s)California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Evo 2004 featured the first Street Fighter match between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong, in which Umehara executed the "Daigo Parry". The controversial final match of the Soulcalibur II tournaments held at Evo 2004 motivated the implementation of a collusion rule still in use today.

Background
Evo 2004 was held at Cal Poly Pomona.

The sixth Evolution Championship Series was held at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Southern California on July 29 to August 1. Evo 2004 featured approximately 700 participants from over 30 nations, each competing in one or more of the nine tournaments held at the event. In order to create an easier situation for staff and increase the average play time of participants, the double-elimination-style tournaments of previous Evo events was replaced with a round-robin/double-elimination pool system. In the old system, some players would find themselves being eliminated from a tournament after losing two games, but because of the newly implemented system each participant would face off against at least nine other players during the preliminary pool.[1]

Up until Evo 2004, every Evolution event relied almost entirely on arcade cabinets. However, arcade hardware has always been relatively difficult to get a hold of, especially for games that do not run on Capcom's CP System II system boards. Furthermore, arcade hardware would commonly offer up technical issues. Lastly, competitors often complained that the arcade hardware available at Evolution was different from the hardware they have trained on. In order to solve these issues, the Evolution organizers opted to switch to using video game consoles only at the tournament, where participants have to bring their own game controllers. Only the Street Fighter III: Third Strike tournament held at Evo 2004 was played on arcade hardware, because the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection release date was pushed back to August.[1]

Tournament organizers opted to turn the team tournaments, which were traditionally exhibition matches, into a main part of the event. Two specifically seeded team tournaments in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and a Pair Play tournament for Tekken Tag Tournament were held at Evo 2004. Evo 2004 also featured a "Bring Your Own Console" area, where people were able to set up smaller-scale tournaments of games not on the main roster.[1]

Evo Moment #37
Main article: Evo Moment 37

Despite having never matched off against each other before, the Japanese Daigo Umehara and American Justin Wong were known for having a supposed rivalry with each other due to their differences in gaming philosophies. The two players met each other in the loser's finals of Evo 2004's Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike tournament. Umehara, playing using the character Ken, was down to his last pixel of vitality and any special attack by Wong's Chun-Li could knock Ken out. Wong attempted to hit his opponent with Chun-Li's multihit "Super Art" move, forcing Umehara to parry 15 attacks in a very short period of time. Umehara did so successfully and went on to counter a final kick of Chun-Li in mid-air before launching a combo move himself and winning the match. Though Umehara lost the grand finals to Kenji Obata, the clip of him parrying Wong's multihit attack became hugely influential and has been compared to famous sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice.[2][3]

Soulcalibur II incident

The final match of the Soulcalibur II tournament at Evo 2004 was held between the friends Rob "RTD" Combs and Marquette "Mick" Yarbrough. The two were widely accused for collusion and not taking the fight seriously, playing using different characters than usual and playing on a "sub-par level". The two disputed these claims when asked about it on Game Show Network's Games Across America. Though Combs and Yarbrough were not punished directly, Evo went on to implement a "collusion rule", stating that players who purposely manipulate a match or intentionally underperform would forfeit prize and title. Speaking with GiantBomb in 2013, Evo-founder Tom Cannon stated that "they broke the spirit of the tournament. ... We were like 'fine, this happened, let's make sure this is never gonna happen again.'" Evolution's anti-collusion measure was further expanded in 2013 and is still in place.[4][5]

Results
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Kenji Obata KO Yun
2nd Daigo Umehara Daigo Ken
3rd Justin Wong jwong Chun Li
4th Toru Hashimoto Raoh Chun Li
5th Keisuke Imai KSK Alex
5th Katsuhisa Ota Kokujin Dudley
7th Hsien Chang hsien Ken
7th Mike Watson Ken
Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Justin Wong jwong Storm/Sentinel/Commando
2nd David Lee KingDavid Magneto/Cable/Sentinel
3rd Desmond Pinkney Xecutioner Sentinel/Storm/Commando
4th Chris Schmidt Magneto/Storm/Sentinel
5th Tong Ho Genghis Storm/Sentinel/Commando
5th Randy Lew Sentinel/Cable/Captain Commando
7th Sooyoung Chon SooMighty Storm/Sentinel/Commando
7th Peter Avila Potter Storm/Magneto/T. Bonne
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Daigo Umehara Daigo O. Sagat, Ryu, Balrog
2nd John Choi Choiboy O. Sagat, Guile
3rd Kuni Funada Kuni Zangief
4th Justin Wong Jwong O. Sagat, Chun-Li
5th Alex Valle CaliPower Ryu, O. Sagat
5th Wes Truelson Ken, Balrog
7th Jesse Howard Ryu
7th Seth Killian S-Kill E. Honda
Capcom vs. SNK 2
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Yosuke Ito Kindevu A-Sakura/Bison/Blanka
2nd Ricki Ortiz HelloKitty A-Vega/Sakura/Blanka
3rd John Choi choiboy C-Ken/Sagat/Guile
4th Dan C-Ken/Ryu/Sagat
5th Justin Wong Jwong C-Vega/Chun-Li/Sagat
5th Campbell Tran Buktooth N-Iori/Morrigan/Hibiki
7th Eddie Lee A-Mai/Eagle/Vega
7th Ryota Fukumoto RF A-Sakura/Bison/Blanka
Soul Calibur II
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Robert Combs RTD Xianghua, Ivy, Voldo, Nightmare
2nd Marquette Yarbrough Mick Cassandra, Sophitia, Voldo
3rd Mystic Senior SowNemesis Sophitia, Cervantes
4th Christian Gonzalez Vicious Suicide Yoshimitsu
5th Steven Luong B:L Mitsurugi
5th Rob Nagaro XCTU Talim
7th Jonathan Soon Binkley Cervantes
7th Steven Hanna Eternal Fighter Nightmare, Xianghua
Guilty Gear X2
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Daigo Umehara Daigo Sol
2nd Yosuke Ito Kindevu Eddie
3rd Ryota Fukumoto RF Faust
4th Kevin Turner Shin Kensou Chipp, Eddie
5th Soh Miura Miu Sol
5th Saif Ebrahim ID Sol
7th Daniel Realyvasquez Ruin Eddie
7th Peter Shou Xenotiger Faust, Axl
Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Hiromiki Kumada Itabashi Zangief Shun Di
2nd Eric Chung ShouTime Sarah
3rd Kurita Vanessa
4th Ryan Hart Prodigal Son Kage, Akira
5th Toru Hashimoto Raoh Lau
5th Adam Rana adamYUKI Jeffrey
7th Che Dunkley Cappo Pai
7th Jimmy Byun Maddy Akira
Tekken 4
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Anthony Tran Jackie Tran Jin
2nd Joshua Molinaro JinKid Jin
3rd Thomas Kymn TomHilfiger Nina, Steve
4th Nikos Fourikis Aenica Julia
5th Ryan Hart Prodigal Son Heihachi
5th Jason Greeson USMC Ogre Paul
7th Chetan Chetty ChetChetty Paul
7th Robert Warren Qbert Jin
Tekken Tag Tournament
Place Player Alias Character(s)
1st Ryan Hart Prodigal Son Jin, Kazuya
2nd Shaun Rivera Unconkable Armor King, Devil, Anna
3rd Brad Vitale Slips Julia / Eddy
4th Nick Shin Shin Julia / Michelle
5th Fabrizio Tavassi Bode Michelle / Julia
5th Thomas Kymn TomHilfiger Devil / Jin, Bruce / Julia
7th Chetan Chetty ChetChetty Jin / Devil, Armor King / Anna
7th Joshua Molinaro JinKid Devil / King
gollark: Somewhat, sure. But amateur radio isn't exactly just "phones but older and worse", you can communicate without the infrastructure, interact with satellites and such, and learn about electronics. Using VHS stuff seems to just be... nostalgia?
gollark: Although I could maybe use good noise cancelling ones.
gollark: I am not going down the path of audiophiles, where I have to spend significant amounts of money for marginal audio quality gains which I'll then just get used to anyway.
gollark: no.
gollark: Me too, except I'd probably just listen off my laptop and generic cheap headphones because I don't really care.

References
  1. Kleckner, Stephen (2004-08-18). "Spotlight on the Evolution 2K4 Fighting Game Tournament". Gamespot.
  2. Markazi, Arash (2016-08-26). "Daigo and JWong: the legacy of Street Fighter's Moment 37". ESPN.
  3. Baker, Chris (2016-07-21). "Flashback: Why 2004 'Street Fighter' Match Is Esports' Most Thrilling Moment". Rolling Stone.
  4. Klepek, Patrick (2013-08-08). "The Collusion of Money, Drama, And Pride". GiantBomb.
  5. Guerrero, John (2015-07-14). "Virtua Kazama covers the EVO Soul Calibur scandal of 04' and the famous Moment 37 in 'The History of EVO (Part 2): 2003-2005'". EventHubs.
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