Punk, MenaRD, & Others Call For Consistent SF6 Tournament Setups

Evo 2024 champion Punk has called for greater consistency in the setups used at major Street Fighter 6 tournaments.

The comments followed a disappointing day at the Esports World Cup for Punk, who was also celebrating his birthday. He suffered defeats to Capcom Cup champion Sahara and Street Fighter legend Tokido, with whom he has a long-standing rivalry.

In the aftermath, Punk criticized the tournament setups, claiming that the lack of INZONE monitors was detrimental and caused noticeable input lag. He also pointed out that the Player 1 side seemed to perform normally, while the Player 2 side did not. Those concerns were echoed by Nephew, who also competed that day and said it was disappointing that a tournament of such prestige did not have better setups.

Punk later posted on X that he was disappointed Japanese players were not speaking out more publicly about the issue. He claimed that while many of them complain about the lag privately, they rarely do so publicly, despite believing that Capcom is more likely to listen to feedback from Japanese players.

"I'm just gonna tweet this cause it sucks waking up feeling terrible knowing i can’t show my skill or any of my practice in head 2 head tournaments, cause for some reason since SF5 TOs can’t figure out how to stop making one side laggy and the other side perfect. This isn’t something any other game has to deal with and it sucks cause Japan will never tweet or say anything about lag online but will complain about it too other players IRL when in reality, they are the only people Capcom truly cares about and will listen too. I just want everything to be perfect for us like every other esport get treated but sadly, until Japanese players start speaking up nothing is ever gonna change for us sadly. I love Street Fighter and i want to keep competing but it’s no way I can keep traveling 8+ hours for these conditions when i can just stay home and stream and make just as much money."

Following the post, there was an outpouring of support for Punk's position, most notably from MenaRD, the reigning Evo champion, as well as Japanese players Tachikawa and Dogura.

In his own post, MenaRD once again called for standardized tournament setups, something the competitive Street Fighter 6 scene has yet to fully implement.

With so many players voicing similar concerns, there is hope that Capcom will address the issue. That could include establishing standardized hardware requirements for major tournaments, including the console or PC platform and the monitor used.

The Esports World Cup is still ongoing, and although Punk has been eliminated, there are still plenty of exciting matches to look forward to.