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MenaRD Wins Capcom Cup 2017

There is a new Street Fighter World Champion and it is MenaRD out of the Dominican Republic.

Ozzie Mejia

December 10, 2017 6:10 PM

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After a furious weekend of action, there is a new Street Fighter V World Champion. He is 18-year-old Saul Leonardo Mena Segundo (a.k.a. MenaRD) winning Capcom Cup 2017 in a thrilling Grand Finals over EVO 2017 champion Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi.

After Tokido defeated MenaRD in a close five-game Winners Finals, the two met again in Grand Finals. The two went back and forth again in the first set, with MenaRD's Birdie exercising methodical aggression. Tokido was patient throughout the entire Grand Finals, however, and found enough openings to break through. MenaRD had a chance to keep things close in the second set, but Echo Fox's own came back with Akuma's Raging Demon, bringing the crowd to its feet.

MenaRD managed to stave off tournament point, though, and tied the set 2-2 with a tremendous come-from-behind Round 2. The RiseNation player took full command of the fifth game and would reset the bracket after a critical Tokido miss.

The bracket reset was yet another game of inches between both players, but MenaRD was able to break through Tokido's blocks and endured his best shot to ultimate prevail.

MenaRD walks away with $250,000 as part of his first place victory.

One of the other big stories of the weekend was Naoki "Nemo" Nemoto, who started his weekend by winning the Capcom Cup Last Chance Qualifier on Friday evening. Behind Urien and his Aegis Reflector V-Trigger, he beat a stacked field, including Seonwoo "Infiltration" Lee in a closely-contested Grand Finals. Nemo continued playing like a maniac throughout the entire weekend, knocking off Capcom Pro Tour points leader and tournament favorite Victor "Punk" Woodley at the start of Saturday's Top 32. He ultimately finished in 3rd place after losing to MenaRD.

Here are the full Capcom Cup 2017 standings:

• 1. MenaRD (Saul Leonardo Mena Segundo)
• 2. Tokido (Hajime Taniguchi)
• 3. Nemo (Naoki Nemoto)
• 4. moke (Naoki Nakayama)
• 5. Itabashi Zangief (Hiromiki Kumada)
• 5. Yukadon (Fujimura Atsushi)
• 7. Daigo Umehara
• 7. Problem X (Benjamin Simon)

The Capcom Cup 2017 Grand Finals capped off an eventful weekend for Street Fighter V. Prior to Top 8, Capcom announced that the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection would be released in May.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?