u/Junior_Suggestion987

Group A is the "Group of Death."

He is a 7-time world champion right now. After Mi2ha4 beat him 2-1 and sent him to losers, he managed to get his revenge in the Grand Finals, taking it 3-2 and 3-1, all while dealing with a cold or fever.

And holy, he was so clutch right before the reset. In the final game, final round at 2-2. You could see him coughing every time the camera cut to him. He was even coughing right after he won the whole thing. That is just sick.

After Mi2ha4 beat him 2-1 and sent him to losers, he managed to get his revenge in the Grand Finals, taking it 3-2 and 3-1, all while dealing with a cold or fever.

And holy, he was so clutch right before the reset. In the final game, final round at 2-2, you could see him coughing every single time the camera cut to him. He was even coughing right after he won the whole thing. That is just sick.

Mai!!!!!!!!

He doesn't believe his Blanka against Ed

Xiaohai made a guest appearance on a friend's stream yesterday to play some Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (CotW). (Just for context, he’s currently unstream since his Kuaishou contract expired and he hasn't signed a new platform yet).

He talked about a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff regarding his recent tournament runs, and I find it really interesting! Here are the key points:

On SFL

The SFL US Region Lock: He mentioned that SFL US is only allowing North and South American players to participate this year. Because of this restriction, he expects a lot of international players to head over to SFL EU instead.

Why SFL EU? Xiaohai speculated that since SFL EU hasn't had the best results over the past couple of years, they might be hoping to bring in more international players to level up the region.

His own SFL plans: He said that as long as the CotW tournament schedule doesn't conflict with SFL, he might actually compete in SFL EU himself.

The Immense Pressure of EWC & CPT

Securing the double qualification tickets was incredibly crucial for him. He admitted he had been under a massive amount of stress ever since his EWC SF6 qualification spot was previously stripped away.

At one point, with only a little over 3 months left until EWC, he was sitting on absolutely nothing—zero tickets for EWC SF6, EWC CotW, CPT, or SWC.

The Grind and Atlanta Regrets

The Strategy: Because he had zero spots, he decided to lock in entirely on CotW first. After successfully winning EVO Japan for CotW, he immediately shifted 100% of his focus back to SF6.

Atlanta: He felt really bad about his run in Atlanta. He felt he actually had decent bracket luck, but it was just way too close to EVO Japan. He bluntly admitted that his SF6 gameplay was "mid and even bad" at that time.

Combo Breaker Struggles: Leading up to Combo Breaker, he was getting absolutely destroyed in practice by Vxbao, Micky, and Zhen. He said no matter what he did, he just kept losing to Vxbao.

The Match Against Fuudo: Going into the Combo Breaker Top 8, his confidence was at rock bottom. The match against Fuudo was the absolute peak of his pressure. However, he said playing that specific match completely "woke him up." Finding his groove in that set is what ultimately allowed him to clutch out both the EWC and CPT tickets.

Thought it was super cool to hear about his mindset. Just wanted to share!

Here is one screenshot of reject's vlog, Fuudo was taking all the meat from Hinao's Ramen bowl, the kid does not like meat.