2019 is undisputedly the year of Victor “Punk” Woodley, or as he prefers it, “Punk Da God”. The 20-year-old just won his third Capcom Pro Tour Premier event of the season with a dominating performance at Combo Breaker 2019, and he’s been at the top of Capcom’s Global Rankings all season, racking up a massive 2,455 points, more than twice Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi who sits in second place with 1,085.
Just how dominant is Punk? Here’s a look at how he stomped practically everyone at Combo Breaker.
Punk is known for his antics both before and after the match, and Combo Breaker was no different with Punk playing mind games with his opponents all weekend long.
While Punk always brings his A game, he seems to have another level he can turn on at will that is absolutely terrifying. After Adel “Big Bird” Anouche won a round against Punk with a random EX Dragon Punch, Punk gave him a 15-second death stare and then completely destroyed his good friend in the next round to finish the set.
In the winner’s semifinals, Tsunehiro “Gachikun” Kanamori, widely considered one of the world’s best Rashid players, looked like he had Punk figured out with his V-Trigger activation mix-up, but Punk showed just how fast he can adapt and quickly finished off Gachikun with another 3-0.
He also showcased his world-class corner pressure, catching Gachikun with a jump back air to air, then trapping him in the corner with a Critical Art to finish.
In the winners’ finals, Punk demonstrated his incredible understanding of V-Reversals against reigning EVO champion, Benjamin “Problem X” Simon, perfectly countering X’s M. Bison and preventing him from hitting a crucial combo.
His ability to clutch matches with a sliver of life (on in this case no life) left is hard to fathom, as he stole this round from Problem X with another amazing Critical Art finish.
His ability to turn on the offense whenever he wants is also second to none. He’s also one of the most disciplined players around, so you almost never expect it when he does throw out a random wakeup dragon punch.
His movement and spacing are unrivaled too. In this round, he caught Problem X at max range and comboed it into EX Tenko into EX Ressenha for the win.
Punk’s grand finals performance highlighted again just how good he is adapting, as he finished off Problem X’s surprise Abigail pick with a quick 3-0 for the tournament win.
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