Ulsan Thinks Esports World Cup Is The Biggest Tournament

Lim "Ulsan" Soo-hoon is the hottest name in Tekken 8 right now following his dominant victory at the recently concluded Esports World Cup held in Saudi Arabia. Ulsan won a whopping $300,000 as the champion and the fact that he took the tournament over ATIF, a strong player from Pakistan, who usually has the upper hand against Ulsan, made the win all the more memorable. 

Ulsan defeated Arslan Ash, Farzeen, and Yagami amongst others to get his win. 

Ulsan sat down for an interview with Gametoc, a Korean outlet, and was asked about various aspects of his win at the EWC. One of the more interesting snippets of the conversation was when Ulsan was asked about the status of EWC in the eyes of players considering the high esteem that tournaments like Evo and Tekken World Tour are held in. According to Ulsan, he feels that due to the very generous prize distribution, EWC does seem to be the biggest tournament in the eyes of players. While Evo and TWT might have more prestige, their payouts aren't as attractive with Arslan Ash winning under $20,000 for his historic Evo win while the TWT prize pool has been put at $300,000 with no payout structure announced yet. 

This shows that EWC was clearly the biggest in terms of the prizing and if the series returns (which they say it will), it might get even more attention in 2025. 

Ulsan was also asked about worries about being paid for the event which he brushed aside saying that firstly, the tournament was being supported by the government which means they will most likely not owe anyone, and that last year's event, which was Gamers8, saw the participants paid out within a month. 

The interview was eye-opening and fun to read and can be viewed here (it's in Korean though)

Ulsan even had time to turn football fans green with envy as he took a photo with arguably the best football player of all time.