MenaRD, Kakeru Nominated For Best Esports Athlete Of The Year At TGA

The Game Awards put out its nominees recently and in what was a surprise to everyone, two fighting game players were nominated for the best esport athlete award. 

The two players, Kakeru from Japan and MenaRD from the Dominican Republic, were put into the running alongside Brawk, Chovy, Forsaken, and Zywoo, names that are probably better known. 

Kakeru recently announced his retirement, but not before an impressive Capcom Cup 11 win and a 2nd place finish at Evo. Meanwhile, MenaRD won both Evo Vegas and Japan and has been completely dominant in the competitive circuit. 

The two are rivals and are some of the finest players that Street Fighter 6 has to offer. It is also interesting to note that both nominees came from the same game and it only goes to show the popularity of SF6 around the world at this moment. 

These awards are seldom won by fighting game players with SonicFox being the only one to have won it so far back in 2018. Kakeru’s retirement due to health issues certainly gives him the sentimental vote, and his huge financial gain by winning Capcom Cup is certainly a huge factor, but MenaRD has been nothing short of dominant and is very hard to argue against as the best player on the planet. On top of that, MenaRD definitely had the better of Kakeru at Evo, where he defeated the Capcom Cup champion 3-0 in both winners’ final and Grand Final for a rather anticlimactic win. 

The winners will be revealed when the awards are announced on the 11th of December 2025.