Capcom Cup 11 Ends In Glorious Fashion And Ignites Hope For The Future

Capcom Cup 11 is over and none other than Japanese perfect parry prince, Kakeru, was the winner. He took the Grand Final over Blaz in dominating fashion. Kakeru’s win is remarkable considering he, over the course of four days, lost only once against Tokido in the group stage, and only dropped a total of four games in his entire run. He beat the likes of Blaz, LeShar and NoahTheProdigy 3-0 during his run and in Grand Final only dropped a game. He was a very dominant winner all in all. 

The best thing about fighting game tournaments has always been the storylines, and CC11 has some pretty big ones starting from the very first day to the glorious end where Kakeru was crowned as the latest FGC millionaire. 

Pre-Tournament

Before the tournament, many looked at some of the most popular names as the possible winner of the tournament. This included Tokido, since the tournament was happening in Japan. There was also the threat of MenaRD who has won the tournament twice and other names like Xiao Hai, the winner the Esports World Cup. Another top name as a potential winner was Punk, who fresh from his Evo 2024 win has looked unstoppable in Street Fighter 6, culminating in a win for his team, FlyQuest, at the Street Fighter League USA finals. 

The stage was set, the stories waiting to be told. 

Day 1

The first day of Capcom Cup 11 was a day for players to feel each other out and start to gather some sort of momentum. The first day saw some incredible wins for some players. An example was S4ltyKiD in group B who came out of Belgium with his impressive Kimberly play, but was up against some titans in his group. He won his first 2 matches against Bangladesh’s Si Anik and then much more surprisingly, took the set over NL who is a formidable opponent. 

Over in group F, which had LeShar, Xian, and Big Bird, it was JAK who stole all the headlines with a 2-0 win over LeShar. Many did not call that result, but it was certainly one that JAK had in him considering he has made top 8 at Evo before and was the final winner of Combo Breaker for Street Fighter V against iDom. The loss meant LeShar had to take games off the top players in his group. 

Kakeru got off to a great start in his group defeating Zangief Bolado and GG Halibel to place himself on top of the group. And in group A, Punk defeated Itabashi Zangief  in his only match of the day to put things in a good place for him. 

Day 2

The second day was when things started to go crazy as players were either putting themselves in a good spot to qualify for top 16. In group A, Punk suffered a shocking defeat to Salvatore from Venezuela in the Cammy mirror which dented his chances. Group E saw another shocking defeat for MenaRD as he was defeated by Limestone, a Columbian Ken player. However, the most shocking defeat had to be Tokido who lost to South Africa’s Jabhi M in a runback from their last meeting in 2023 in South Africa during the Red Bull Kumite event held there. 

Interestingly, this was the same tournament that announced Kakeru to the world, at least for those paying close attention to the competitive scene. In that tournament, Kakeru won the last chance qualifier against EndingWalker in a dominant performance and he did really well until he lost to Big Bird. 

That performance was eclipsed by the absolute masterclass from Jabhi M as he beat Tokido in a ft5 set 5-3, using Chun li against Tokido’s Ken. That match is still one of the most viewed fighting game sets on YouTube at 2.1 million views. The two faced off again and this time, it was Jabhi M with the Terry Bogard against Ken. To the surprise of everyone, Jabhi M took down Tokido 2-0. In a later interview, Jabhi stated that he thinks Terry has a much easier time against Ken than the other shotos. The defeat left Tokido’s tournament life hanging by a thread. 

Day 3

The 3rd day finalized the tournament life of many and the players who qualified weren’t necessarily the ones people envisaged. For instance in group A, most would have said that Punk was a shoe-in for the top 16 and then one other. But, as it turned out, Takamura was the one who was the frontrunner of the group defeating both Salvatore and HotDog29 to top the group. Punk in uncharacteristic fashion lost another game to HotDog29 and this made his match against Phenom a make or break game for the two. The fact that it was a Cammy mirror match was very fitting. There had been some talk that perhaps Punk struggles in a mirror match against a competent player and while this is inconclusive, his loss to Phenom will not quieten people on that front. 

With that defeat, Punk’s run in the tournament was over. Group B saw NoahTheProdigy make it out on top of his group solidifying him as one of the best players in the world. Noah’s personality can be described as prickly by some, but there is no denying that he is an entertaining player and the best Luke player in the world currently with the results to prove it.

Group C was a drama as Tokido was all but out, but he had two matches to play on the day and, he made up for a disappointing performance the day before with wins over both Kakeru and GG Halibel. But he was dependent on Zangief Bolado doing him a favor and defeating Dual Kevin for him to have a shot. It is no secret that Zangief is the bane of Dual Kevin’s existence as the character was what stood in the way of an early qualification when he made grand final at Cream City Convergence, only to be beaten by MenaRD’s Zangief. Zangief was the spoiler again and he lost 2-0. Tokido also needed Jabhi M to lose both his matches to Zangief Bolado and Kakeru to have a shot. Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened with the loss against Kakeru in particular being painful as the last interaction saw Kakeru combo into a level 3 super that whiffed. But because Jabhi had conceded defeat and had his head in his head in his hands, he didn’t see it and Kakeru wasted no time to put the final nail in the coffin. 

This meant that against all odds, Tokido somehow made it out of the group stages. Fuudo in group E was one of only two players that won 100% of their matches in the group stage with the other being Blaz from Chile, a 15-year-old prodigy who would really come into his own in this tournament. Group H had a bit of a sad story as Juninho-RAS, who won his first three matches, lost to both Shuto and AngryBird to see his hopes of qualification crash and burn at the end. 

Final Day

There were 16 players left and the news that the matches from this point on would be first-to-3 must have been great news for the players. The final day saw Kakeru do the win, but perhaps the shocker was Blaz who ran the gauntlet after being tossed into losers by Kakeru to make it to Grand Finals. 

Capcom Cup has had this knack in recent times in producing a star name that people previously didn’t know in grand finals. In 2022 it was Zhen who made the run all the way from the last chance qualifier to the finals where he fell to MenaRD. 2023 was the story of UMA who actually got the win against the more well-known Chris Wong. 2024/2025 was all about Blaz who following his loss to Kakeru went on to defeat Evo winner Xian, top Japanese player Shuto, Blink Respawn winner, NoahTheProdigy, Evo winner AngryBird, and generational talent, LeShar…in these games, he won 3-0 save for the match against Shuto which went down to the wire. 

MenaRD fell to another Dee Jay in Xian which makes it the second time in a row he is falling to a Dee Jay as he lost in the last Capcom Cup to Fuudo’s Dee Jay. 

Blaz announced himself to the world, but he had already made a splash at Blink Respawn where he made it to top 8 along with his fellow teammate Craime. He was unable to do anything about Kakeru who was on something else as he only lost one game. So there was no reset or anything, Kakeru just won plain and simple to become the second FGC millionaire.

The event was well received by all as the 10,000 capacity Ryogoku Kokugikan was full on the day and the cheers were loud and proud. Having a Japanese player win it must have also made it all the more sweet for the crowd. There were very few technical issues and there were absolutely no complaints from players regarding the setups or lag of any sort. 

Capcom Cup 11 will live long in the memory and with how well it was received, it is hoped that it only bodes well for the future of competitive Street Fighter 6.