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Street Fighter 6 Brussels Challenge took place in Belgium throughout the weekend. 321 players were fighting in yet another offline tournament in a blooming scene. A new game is bound to come with a few surprises, but we can safely say no one expect to see a Street Fighter 6 tournament being won by a newcomer: Mohamed "Kayne" Sobti.  

Kayne's surprise showing

  Kayne winning a competition at the Brussels Challenge 2023 wasn't that unexpected, if it had happened in his actual main game: Dragon Ball FighterZ. Sobti isn't a newcomer to the competitive fighting game scene, but he is a novelty to the competitive Street Fighter scene as a whole, not just SF6.  

(Image via @Kayne_Seys on Twitter)

  He's been participating in DBFZ tournaments since 2018 and has middling results. Some top finishes, a win at VSFighting X and some lower placements in other tournaments. He is a good player by all accounts, but not at the top of the DBFZ leaderboards. How is it then, that he waltzes into the Street Fighter 6 competition at Brussels and wins it all?  

SF6 Brussels Challenge- A stacked tournament

  Brussels Challenge had an impressive pool of talented players in the Street Fighter 6 competition. Kayne had to face the likes of Benjamin "Problem X" Simon, Christ "Akainu" Onema, Endingwalker, Kilyan "Kilzyou" Faucheux, Valentin "Valmaster" Petit. These are respected players who main Street Fighter and have been playing it professionally since at least SFV. Kayne had never participated in an offline Street Fighter tournament before. He 2-0'd the three series he played in the bracket stage. When he reached top 48, Popibluebeast managed to sneak a game away, but got taken down 2-1 regardless. He then 2-0'd veteran player Kilzyou to qualify to Top 8. This is where his run gets truly impressive.  

(Image via Liquipedia)

He beats the legendary Problem X, takes down JoKeR JoKeZ, another experienced SFV player and pulls off a miracle comeback against Akainu, probably the best Guile in Street Fighter 6 at the moment.  

Brussels Challenge Finals

  These finals were something to behold. If you didn't watch the tournament and are short on time, do yourself a favor and watch this incredible series. They will be ~23 mins well spent. Kayne went undefeated through the winners side of the bracket, so he had a two lives in the Grand Finals. This proved to be crucial, as Akainu seemed to be powering up throughout this entire tournament. The french machine was piloting Guile like "a level 9 CPU", as Samed "Damascus" Abdessadki highlight during his cast. His run in the lower-bracket of SF6's Brussels Challenge was nothing short of impressive. Getting through 4 BO5 series and only dropping 2 games against top tier competition is not a feat many can boast of doing. Akainu started these finals off as a man on a mission. The first 3 games felt like business for the player who had just come off of an incredible run at Redbull Kumite 2023.  

(Image via @Akainuuuuu on Twitter)

Akainu kept zoning Kayne away with the classic Sonic-Boom into Flash-Kick oppression and the DBFZ player seemed lost. Was the lack of Street Fighter experience the vulnerability Akainu would exploit with a character which debuted in 1991's SFII? The 3-0 came in a flash and in less than 10 minutes the bracket was reset. Victory seemed a little more than a formality for Akainu at this point. Right? Kayne had a different plan in mind. He bounces back immediately in the first game of the bracket reset and shows the tenacity of a winner. Akainu keeps on pulling off ridiculous Super punishes at the last possible frames, clutching wins away in manners that don't seem possible, but Kayne doesn't break. The series is pushed to the third round of the fifth game and the newcomer pulls off a nearly perfect win against the seemingly unstoppable Akainu, securing his victory at the Street Fighter 6 Brussels Challenge 2023.  

Will we see more of Kayne in Street Fighter 6?

  We absolutely will. The player took to social media to confirm that he will be pursuing both SF6 and DBFZ simultaneously and his focusing his efforts now on preparing for EVO.     All eyes in the fighting game scene are now on EVO 2023, the most respected tournament in the genre. The tournament will take place between August 4th and 6th in Las Vegas, and Street Fighter 6 has already "broken a franchise and All-Time Evo record for competitors" in terms of entries. Will this be the biggest EVO of all time?

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Featured image via @Reversal_GG. If you enjoyed this article, follow the writer at @Mushwrites. For more content surrounding Street Fighter 6, keep an eye on our page at Esportsheaven.