The man, the legend.

Daigo Umehara, the Michael Jordon of Street Fighter, was honored with a fan-run website ( BeastDaigo.jp ) as a tribute to his influential role in the fighting game community. Daigo has been a noteable Street Fighter competitor for years, but it wasn’t until this video that his name became world-famous.

Nicknamed “The Beast” because of his unstoppable skill, Daigo had previously retired from the tournament scene due to a lack of competition. Fighting games no longer held their charm for him once his mastery of the games offered him no new rivals to challenge him. It wasn’t until the recent release of Street Fighter IV, that the competitive fire within him sparked anew.

The website itself is currently in Japanese only, though you can still enjoy streaming videos captured from some of Daigo’s matches. Daigo has been an inspiration and role model to competitive fighting game players all over the world. This new site is the community’s show of appreciation for his achievements in the community.

If you’d like to learn more about Daigo, he’s mentioned heavily in David Sirlin‘s competitive gaming book, Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion, and is extensively interviewed in Brian Ashcroft’s Arcade Mania!, a book dedicated to Japanese arcade culture.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Games, Street Fighter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.