The fighting games community is a space in esports that thrives on individual skill, consistency, and narratives. It’s not enough for the FGC to just have great players: everyone yearns for a feel-good story, or a giant-killing underdog run, or an unknown player starting to win so much that they become a “villain.”
This year had no shortage of those: a teenager challenging the very notion of what we thought meteoric rise to stardom was before, a multi-game veteran showing kids how it’s done, the Tekken final boss doing final-boss things, the strongest bull reaffirming his strength, and the champion who had to step away.
Five standout FGC players of 2025
Derek “Blaz” Blaz
Those who follow fighting games know that the South American country of Chile has a very strong local scene. In the COVID years, two Chilean twin brothers, Matías “Scorpionprocs” Martínez and Nicolás “Nicolas” Martínez, tore down the foundations of competitive Mortal Kombat, even challenging the perennial champion Dominique “SonicFox” McLean.
The next prodigy the country has produced competes in Street Fighter 6, and his name is Derek “Blaz” Blaz. He started making a name for himself last year, when he won all but one CPT World Warrior event in South America, qualifying to Capcom Cup 11, and made it to the top 8 of his very first tier 1 event, Blink Respawn 2024.
At Capcom Cup 11 in March of this year, he made his statement, going on a phenomenal Losers bracket run, beating Xian, Shuto, NoahTheProdigy, AngryBird, and Leshar, ultimately losing to untouchable Kakeru. And even then, he was the only one who managed to take a game against his phenomenal JP.
He has already won every single CPT 2025 World Warrior event, placed third at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2025, and secured two second-place finishes at Esports World Cup 2025 and Evo France 2025. And if all of this doesn’t sound overly impressive, here’s the kicker: Blaz only turned sixteen this October.
He already has godlike reactions and uncanny game sense. If he continues to grow and gains experience under the bright lights, the entire Street Fighter 6 scene may be in big trouble.
Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun
Zeng “Xiao Hai” Zhuojun was already an esports legend and the greatest of all time in the King of Fighters scene. He has dominated SNK games for more than a decade, but is also known to dabble in some other titles like Dragon Ball FighterZ and especially Street Fighter.
He’s been winning the KoF Evo two years in a row, but with the game sunset in favor of the newly released Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, there was at least a small “what if” chance oh him not adapting to the game immediately.
And that’s what seemed to happen initially: he lost to GO1 in the Esports World Cup 2025 grand finals, and then bombed out of Evo 2025 in 9th – 12th. But then he made an unbelievable Losers run all the way to the win from the top 24 at Evo France 2025, won the SNK Championship Series 2025 Finals, and finished in the top 4 at SNK World Championship 2025 Finals.
That’s quite good, but maybe not groundbreaking, considering his usual level. He also placed second at the aforementioned SNK World Championship 2025 Finals in The King of Fighters XV. Still not impressed? Well, he also won the Esports World Cup 2025 in Street Fighter 6, again.
Funnily enough, Xiao Hai defeated our previous entry, Blaz, in the grand finals. The veteran will be 37 in April; he’s more than 20 years older than the Chilean prodigy, yet still plays like a youngster, letting his game knowledge and unfading reaction time carry him forward.
Saul Leonardo “MenaRD” Mena II
Saul Leonardo Mena II, or just MenaRD, is not just one of the best Street Fighter players in the world, he’s firmly in the conversation for the best ever. “The Strongest Bull” is the only player to have won the Capcom Cup twice, and his overall consistency gives his claim for the throne lots of legitimacy.
But like with Lionel Messi before the World Cup 2022, there was one question: Can a player be considered the greatest without an Evo win? He was very close in 2023, when AngryBird clutched the series after MenaRD reset the bracket. And he won Evo Japan just last year. So the main Evo win was his ultimate goal for 2025.
But the year didn’t start super well for him. Capcom Cup 11 was a complete write-off for him: a loss against Xian in the first round of Losers bracket resulted in 13th – 16th in the final standings. Much below his standard. Red Bull Kumite 2025 in Paris was better, but a mere 3rd – 4th is also not his ceiling.
In May, he won Street Fighter 6 at EVO Japan, becoming a repeat champion there. But his form didn’t hold: Combo Breaker, CEO, Blink Respawn – all failures. So when it came time for Evo in Las Vegas, he was not considered the favorite. No one would ever underestimate MenaRD, but Kakeru, Leshar, and AngryBird looked stronger.
But he locked in so much that he barely lost singular rounds in the games he won. The Grand finals match against Kakeru was his crowning achievement: not only did it end 3:0, but MenaRD also didn’t lose a single round.
With this victory, MenaRD broke another record by becoming the first Street Fighter player to win both Evo Japan and Evo Las Vegas in a single season.
Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique
Ask any Tekken fan, “Who do you think will win Evo in Tekken 8?” and the answer will be Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique. It’s not even a prediction, more like an expectation. He’s like Max Verstappen or Thanos – completely inevitable. He doesn’t win every event – nobody ever does, that’s not within the realm of possibility. But there’s this general belief among the Tekken players and viewers that if he sets his mind on a certain tournament, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.
Don’t be mistaken, though, as while he is the best player in the world, he’s not that far above the competition. Modern Tekken has several Pakistani, Korean, and Japanese players who can win any given event on their good day.
What sets Arslan Ash apart is just how clutch he is. You can never count him out, even if you’re 2:0 up and on a match point. He has ground out victories in matches he had no business winning.
Evo 2025 is a clear example of this. ATIF made it into the Grand finals against him and convincingly won the Anna mirror match, resetting the bracket, and went up 1:0 after the reset. Arslan Ash simply switches to Nina and proceeds to grind out 3 wins in a row, winning his sixth Evo.
And he won his seventh at the inaugural Evo France 2025 in Nice, this time after an impressive Losers run and beating in-form JeonDDing in the grand finals. Arslan Ash is an undisputed Evo king, and it seems like no one is able to do anything about this.
Kakeru “Kakeru” Watanabe
The brightest flame burns the fastest. Kakeru “Kakeru” Watanabe started playing competitively around 2019, having played fighting games for almost a decade at that point. His Street Fighter V results were entirely unimpressive, though he did make some noise at Evo 2022, beating players like Caba and Ajax Fidelity.
But when Street Fighter 6 came out, the game just clicked with him. His perfect parry chains became legendary, and his methodical, robotic pressure with JP was impossible to deal with. He won the Red Bull Kumite 2023 Last Chance Qualifier, beating up-and-coming prodigy EndingWalker, and placed 3rd – 4th in the main event, and followed that up with Evo top 8, and the Gamers8 2023 victory, bagging unprecedented $400,000.
Last year, his results were weaker, but he managed to qualify for the Capcom Cup 11 main event. After making it out of the relatively difficult group into the Winners bracket, he dropped a generational performance, only losing one game throughout – against Blaz in the grand finals. This performance reaffirmed his top player status, in addition to netting him a $1m prize. Come Evo 2025, he was the biggest favorite to win it, but MenaRD was on a mission that day.
Next stop for Kakeru was the Esports World Cup 2025, something strange happened: he withdrew from his match against Punk due to a medical emergency. Later, we found out that he suffers from some kind of neurological dysfunction that makes it impossible to continue his career as a professional player.
On October 23, 2025, Kakeru made an official statement, confirming his retirement. He thanked his fans, teammates, managers, and rival players for giving him the strength he needed to compete, and lamented his inability to do anything about the situation. He received overwhelming support and wishes to defeat his ailment and come back stronger.
The winner of the previous Capcom Cup is invited to the next one to defend the title. Unfortunately, it’s already confirmed that with this retirement, Kakeru forfeited his spot.
What becomes extremely clear after taking a look at this top is that Street Fighter 6 was the game to follow this year if you wanted to witness top matches that were enhanced by incredible narratives, with Tekken 8 reconfirming the “GOAT” status of its brightest star. Let’s hope that the rest of the competition steps up next year – the upcoming Marvel Tōkon and Invincible VS should help in this regard. Here’s to a more exciting 2026 in the FGC!
