East Coast Throwdown was the tournament of underdogs. There was only one former Ranking Event winner, Echo Fox' Julio Fuentes, in the top-8 of the Street Fighter V main event. The majority of the field was filled with surprises and shockers; the favorite to take down the event, Twitch and Red Bull's Daigo "The Beast" Umehara, took ninth place.
Your winner: Julio Fuentes
The only former Ranking Event winner added another victory to his trophy case. Fuentes took down the field in his signature blistering pace. Whether it was his penchant to slam the rematch button after a win or loss to prevent any time between games or relentless v-skill and reversals on wake-up, it was a complete victory.
Second-place finisher Lud reset the bracket in dominating fashion, but ran out of gas. Lud controlled the neutral and forced Fuentes into many unsafe reversals or button presses in critical moments in the first set before Fuentes woke up. When the set was reset, it was a completely different story. Once Fuentes scored a knockdown, it was his round to lose. As the reset continued, Fuentes sped up his movement and overwhelmed Lud in every skirmish and clutch situation.
The Beast was defeated
The Daigo Umehara tour hit a snag in the United States. After back-to-back Ranking Event victories in Hong Kong and Australia, he could not secure a top-8 finish at ECT. His exit was the big surprise of the tournament, as he was eliminated by two Chun-Li players. Both Coin Up's Ludovic "Lud" Mbock and Panda Global's Raynel "RayRay" Hidalgo took advantage of Daigo Umehara's blunders.
There were several moments during both sets where Daigo landed the killing blow but could not execute it. While both RayRay and Lud played solid and, oftentimes, forced Daigo into uncomfortable situations, it was not a clean victory. Before the tournament, Daigo stated in his questions and answers panel that Chun-Li was the best character in the game and that USA players should not be slept on. Both RayRay and Lud proved that point against The Beast.
While there were names with some notoriety like Coin Up's Ludovic "Lud" Mbock, Panda Global's Raynel "RayRay" Hidalgo, or Sean "Shine" Simpson, they went through the tournament without much success. In fact, the relatively unknown names, Daniel "HamBam" Liang, Mayur "Raoh NS" Gourkanti, and Danny "Danslip" Ortiz, surprised the audience and opponents.