Fans of esports fighting games, especially Tekken, must be familiar with Arslan Ash. The Pakistani player whose real name is Arslan Siddique shook the world when he defeated the Korean “Tekken god”, Knee, in 2018 yesterday. Since then Arslan Ash’s name has skyrocketed, and culminating in becoming the undisputed strongest player in the world by winning the EVO 2019 and EVO Japan 2019 at once.
Arslan Ash makes the name Pakistan fly in the international esports ecosystem. But rumors are circulating in the fighting game community, Arslan Ash is not the only Pakistani player who is very good at playing Tekken. Maybe even he is not the strongest player there. It’s just that they often have difficulty competing overseas, because of problems with fees, visas, and so on.
Last weekend, August 24-25, 2019, the rumor was proven. A Tekken player from Pakistan appeared in the Malaysia FV Cup tournament, defeated Knee in the Grand Final, then won. And he is not Arslan Ash! The player is Awais Honey, a member of the Genuine Gaming professional team that relies on Akuma’s character. Amazingly, the 2019 FV Cup was the first Tekken World Tour (TWT) tournament he participated in.
FV Cup in Malaysia is a Tekken World Tour Challenger level. This is the third tournament level on Tekken World Tour, below the Master or Master+ level. In comparison, the first winner of the TWT Challenger will get 150 TWT Points, while the TWT Master winner gets twice that, which is 300 points.
Even though the class is Challenger, the FV Cup is still a “stacked” tournament with lots of great players. Besides Knee, there were also other big names like Jeondding, Puma, Pekos, Chikurin, and so on.
Knee actually appeared very dominating in this tournament. Utilizing a number of different characters such as Steve, Marduk, Kazumi, to Kazuya, Knee managed to pitch to the Grand Final via the Winners Bracket. Meanwhile Awais Honey, loyal to Akuma, slowly had to climb Losers Bracket after he lost to Chikurin in the Top 32 round. But then he made a brilliant comeback, did a reset at the Grand Final, and finally uprooted Knee.
If you watch the game between Knee and Awais Honey, you will find Akuma’s extremely neat game. It is very agile in dodging, but once it finds a gap, it will launch a violent counterattack, especially if Akuma is having an EX meter. It was like being reminded of the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Even in the last match, Awais Honey managed to create a perfect ending with a Perfect Round, as if to silence the audience who doubted the expertise of this 24-year-old man.
Awais Honey is not the only player from Pakistan who excels in the 2019 FV Cup. There are two other players, namely Bilal and Khan who both come from the FATE Esports team. Bilal won the Top 8 ranking with the characters Akuma and Bryan. While Khan won the Top 4 by favoring Geese Howard.
The increasing number of Pakistani players appearing at this global Tekken event shows that the country still has a lot of potential that can be explored. If so far South Korea has always been a state for Tekken players, maybe it will shift to Pakistan. If that happens, of course the Tekken esports world will be even more exciting later.
