Death, taxes, and operational difficulties: Evo Japan should not be an Evo event

On 1 May 2026, Victor “Punk” Woodley write a tweet saying that Hello Japan it has been a bad thing for him every year, that it might be his last time to go to this tournament because of his experience.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated problem, as a group of top players from all fighting sports have shared his feeling.

From Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez to William “Leffen” Hjelteall of them are of the opinion that this tournament has done a lot of wrong things to the players, which also affects the viewership of those who watch it at home.

Evo has been a fixture of the FGC for years now, and comes with the expectation that the event will go well and that every viewer at home will have a good time. However, in recent years, the competition has increased, due to the purchase of RTS owned by the government of Saudi Arabia.

What was once held only in Las Vegas is now a worldwide circuit, making it available to hundreds, if not more thousandsof people in FGC. Although it has been criticized by some top players in FGC, such as Tekken player Arslan “Arslan Ash” SidiqqueThere’s no doubt that the tournament’s global expansion has shined a light on some local legends who don’t have the financial backing to travel to Las Vegas.

That being said, each of the new tournaments still has “Evo” in their name, and that’s the same expectation: Smooth competition and a smooth viewing experience. Evo Japan didn’t deliver on any of those.

It should have been clear that this tournament would have been a nightmare if the event the day before started with technical problems. The event was Evo Legends Live, featuring the main event: Daigo vs MenaRD, a first-to-ten match between Street Fighter legends.

Now, before the main event, there are a few matches for the undercards. Guess what? The first one took more than an hour just to start. The second one? Exactly the same case. This kind of waiting time is dangerous, considering that each game wouldn’t take that long. Basically, the entire broadcast was like that twice because of you.

With that being said, it’s safe to assume that the crew has learned from their mistakes and carried the momentum to be able to salvage FGC’s biggest event and host the best tournament yet this year, right?

Well… not really.

The next day, top players from all different sports expressed their disappointment about the tournament. Punk mentioned that the consolation of this competition is very intense which caused him to lose the games because his character was retreating and doing nothing.

Players love it Benjamin “Problem X” Simonon the other hand, they have complaints about the TO’s decision not to allow the players to warm up before their matches.

Perhaps the harshest criticism of all comes from veteran gamer NYChrisG, who wrote a wall of text highlighting his experience mid-tournament. To explain, he vents his anger by saying that he heard that the whole Evo Japan was a “trash tournament,” but “I had to see for myself.”

“Right away, I had problems,” NYChrisG said in a statement and highlighted the fact that “Dqs [sic] and things were very late, I was able to show up about an hour later.”

And because things were so slow, his games went too far.

He continued: “The way Japanese people run this competition, it seems that everything has to be done professionally and precisely, so that even something simple has to go through three chains of control. No one here makes their own decision (even if it’s very small).

“I want to play the game and go. I don’t care about anything else.”

Then he continued to speak in a manner 2XKO the tournament was “oooof overall,” admitting that he has never seen a 2XKO tournament that went so well. This is further backed up by Leffen via tweet, saying that his Victory semi-final match with Supernoon at 2XKO’s Top 8 was a big hit for some reason.

The break is cut from the video Evo uploaded to YouTube, but it’s clear because there’s a change before the cut to the cast.

Finally, NYChrisG concluded his speech by saying: “Overall, I think if this tournament wasn’t in Japan, it would be fair to say that this event would be a wash. It’s sad that there are so many good people involved. It’s too bad, it really doesn’t matter/doesn’t matter.”

This is excellent from the two-time EVO champion.

It wasn’t just those flying that had a problem. Cosaa Street Fighter 6 the Japanese player who finished 9th in the event, also revealed that the PlayStation 5’s Street Fighter 6 settings were incorrect.

Another part of Evo Japan that had a problem was Betty’s OG Hunt, where Japanese Street Fighter 6’s female content creator, Betty, played against the legends of the game. He has been continuously demoting popular Japanese actors, including a famous actor Ryutaro “Aru” Nodawho was also a powerful martial artist before switching to acting.

Last year, at Evo Vegas, he expanded his content to try to take down those from overseas, with Justin Wong as his first target. That did not go well for him as Justin took him down, he was the only opponent to survive his “hunt”. This year at Evo Japan, he focused on Ryan Hart, a true legend of the fighting game community, and successfully took him down.

But since this was Evo Japan, the feed was glitchy, so a cameraman tried to broadcast the game by pointing the camera at one of the monitors on stage. One commenter said, “This is so OG, they’re bringing it back to taping the TV screen.”

Although the comment is funny, this kind of operational difficulty should not exist anywhere nearby premier event at FGC. His valuable time was destroyed.

The worst part is that it is not the first time that Evo Japan has had technical problems. Evo Japan 2025 also had some of them in the top eight Guilty Gear -STRIVE-. This continued until the Grand Finals, which is unacceptable for such an important event in the FGC.

The fact that this has been happening for years should be a cause for concern for the Evo Japan staff. These should have been released days before the actual tournament, and everything had to be checked and tested to make sure every competitor in the area would have a good time.

But time after time, Evo Japan continues to disappoint.

So, what to fix? To be quite honest, I’m not so sure. Last year, neither Evo Vegas nor Evo France had major technical difficulties. If there was, it’s so small that no one has talked about it. However, whenever it comes to Evo Japan, there is always problem with console and managers.

Personally, I would look to Intel Extreme Masters for Counter-Strike 2 for inspiration. Every time I sit down and watch an IEM tournament, I know I’m in for a great time and that everything will be as seamless as possible. I’m not saying that fighting game tournaments should copy everything that IEM does; I say the Evo Japan staff can learn from the IEM staff.

With the RTS purchase, I think Evo should have more money to send Evo Japan staff overseas for professional training to make sure nothing like this happens again.

Because in my eyes, Evo Japan 2026 was a disgrace, and totally unworthy of the Evo suffix.