Tissuemon ended the 2017 TEKKEN World Tour as Europe’s top player. On Sunday, he took a big step towards ending 2018 the same way by winning the Tour event at The Colosseum Spring 2018 in Rome, Italy on Sunday.
Tissuemon is tough to beat anywhere in the world, but he is an especially tough opponent when he has home field advantage. His victory on Sunday means that he has won every Tour event that has ever taken place in his adopted home country of Italy. He previously won both of the Italian events on last year’s Tour: Milan Games Week and the fall edition of The Colosseum.
The Italian star was in complete control for most of the tournament. He made it all the way to the winners’ final of the event without dropping a game, picking up 2-0 wins over AkumaMatata, DevilKazuya, and FakePotter along the way.
Asim, his final opponent, was another story.
Asim went with Kazumi in the winners’ final against Tissuemon’s signature Master Raven. The pick paid off early. As the British player took the first two rounds of Game 1. Tissuemon stormed back to win the opening game, but things did not get any easier as the set went on. Asim won Games 2 and 3 and held a 2-1 lead in Game 4. With his back against the wall, Tissuemon dug deep and rattled off five straight rounds to survive the set and advance to the grand final.
After dispatching fellow British star Kaneandtrench 3-1 in the losers’ final, Asim earned another crack at Tissuemon in the grand final. This time, he decided that Kazumi was not the answer for Tissuemon’s Master Raven. Unfortunately for him, neither of his other choices were the answer. Asim’s Game 1 pick of Katarina ended in a loss. A switch to Dragunov served him better as he was able to win a game, but Tissuemon once again came up big and took the set 3-1.
Despite the loss, Asim had one of his best ever performances. He went undefeated in pool play, then beat a pair of last year’s TEKKEN World Tour finalists - Super Akouma and Kaneandtrench - on his way to a second-place finish.
Kaneandtrench ended the day in third place, while FakePotter took fourth. Super Akouma tied for fifth place with Ghirlanda, while Italian players Bode and Rikimaru rounded out the top eight.
Super Akouma’s fifth-place finish may not have been the result the Frenchman wanted, but it still helped him towards his goal of returning to the TEKKEN World Tour Finals. He now stands in seventh place on the global leaderboard, tops among all European players, while Tissuemon sits in a four-way tie for tenth place.
Expect plenty of leaderboard movement over the next few weeks. The TEKKEN World Tour kicks is about to enter a big stretch of tournaments, with three Master events taking place over the next four weekends. That run kicks off on Friday with Battle Arena Melbourne 10 in Melbourne, Australia, followed by Combo Breaker in Chicago, Illinois and Fighting Games Challenge in Lodz, Poland.
