Street Fighter League USA Week 8 Recap:

Week 8 of Streeet Fighter League USA 2023 was an eventful time and all eyes were on UYU to see if they could go above Red Rooster who are 10 points ahead on the table, but with the opponents being Bandits, they had their work cut out for them. 

The matches for the day were as follows:

• UYU vs Bandits
• Versus Vortex vs Endemic
• NASR vs Red  Rooster

UYU (HOME) VS BANDITS (AWAY)

VS

Match Results

• Zhen (Dee Jay) 2 - Caba (Guile) 0
• Dual Kevin (Luke) 1 - Xiaohai (JP/Ken) 2
• Vxbao (JP) 0 - MenaRD (Luke) 3

UYU find themselves in a very difficult spot seeing as they are the other team that could find themselves out of the playoff spots and with only 10 points separating them from Red Rooster, but against Bandits it was always going to be a difficult time. They started really well with Zhen getting 10 points off Caba. But the second match saw Dual Kevin lose to Xiaohai. The set was one of the slowest paced games you'll ever see as Xiaohai, using JP, slowly chipped away at Dual Kevin and even when he switched to Ken, Xiaohai still kept things very slow. It seems the tactic was to wear Dual Kevin down mentally, and it seemed to work as Dual Kevin struggled to get anything going. Xiaohai finished the set with a well-placed crouching medium kick which caught Dual Kevin and gave Bandits 10 points. 

Nuckledu decided to entrust the anchor spot to Vxbao to go up against MenaRD's Luke and perhaps it wasn't the best choice as the Capcom Cup champion dominated the set and took it three games straight. This gave Bandits the win and put them at the top of the table for now as they wait to see if NASR could defeat Red Rooster.

Final Scores

UYU (10) vs Bandits (30)

VERSUS VORTEX (HOME) VS ENDEMIC (AWAY)

VS

Match Results

• NL (Luke) 2 - ChrisCCH (Ken) 1
• Xian (Dee Jay) 2 - Samurai (Luke) 0
• DCQ (JP) 1 - Reynald (JP) 3
• Oil King (Ken) 0 - Flash Metroid (Blanka) 1

Endemic have been the whipping boys of the league so far and it has been a very difficult time for them. On the other side, Versus Vortex, in need of the points to go far ahead of UYU and Red Rooster, sent out their best team and it was looking good initially as NL and Xian won their matches to get 20 points. But, the anchor match was a doozie as Reynald defeated DCQ in the JP mirror match in what was a stirring performance which belied any of the earlier tension the team had been exhibiting. With DCQ defeated, the tie breaker saw Flash Metroid finish things off against Oil King to get Endemic their first win of the season. 

Final Scores

Versus Vortex (20) vs Endemic (25)

NASR (HOME) VS RED ROOSTER (AWAY)

VS

Match Results

• Punk (Cammy) 1 - Ajax Fidelity (Juri) 2
• Nephew (Juri) 1 - PR-Balrog (Juri) 2
• AngryBird (Ken) 3 - Bananaken (JP) 1
• Big Bird (Marisa) 1 - Mono (Dee Jay) 0

NASR with 200 points were looking to keep their spot at the top against Bandits, but had to face a very lively Red Rooster. The team have been largely successful with both Punk and AngryBird and Punk, as has been the case a lot recently, went up first. Coming into this set, Punk had played in seven matches and won them all. So it was a shock when Ajax Fidelity was able to defeat Punk and take 10 points off him. Ajax Fidelity came to the fore last season with his phenomenal Ed. Now, using Juri, he has shown that he is still as prolific as ever and was able to go toe-to-toe with Punk and come out victorious. 

Next up was Nephew who has so far barely played, but it did make sense since Big Bird had suffered something of a dip in form. Against PR-Balrog, it was the mirror match and the set went down to the wire, but it was PR-Balrog who finished things off with a well placed throw. 

This pitted Evo winner, AngryBird against the revelation of the season, Bananaken. With the prospect of losing 40-0, AngryBird stepped up for his team and won against Bananaken with an impressive 3-1. This brought Big Bird against Mono and he was able to get the 5 points against to make it 25-20. 

Final Scores

NASR (25) vs Red Rooster (20)

The top three spots are so close going into the final two match days with NASR on top with a 25-point cushion while Versus Vortex and Bandits are close behind. The three teams are more or less guaranteed a spot in thhe playoffs and are now simply jockeying for position as the top placed team goes straight to the Grand Final while the other teams have to struggle for a better spot. UYU now find themselves 20 points adrift from the playoff spot and will need to really find some form going into the final games to have a chance to be in the top 4. 

The next set of games are:

• Bandits vs Endemic
• NASR vs Versus Vortex
• Red Rooster vs UYU