Alongside the first waves of pools for the eight Arena games and eight Extended Lineup games that kicked off Evo 2025 on Friday, the Showcase Stage hosted the Evo Showcase, featuring a full day of panels, exhibition matches, interviews, new character reveals, and more. The Evo Showcase featured panels from the developers of Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Rivals of Aether II, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, Invincible VS, and MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls.
There was also an exhibition tournament for HUNTERxHUNTER NENxIMPACT, which will be making its Evo debut at the upcoming Evo France in October. Dylnyan took Grand Finals over Lariat God, earning a trip to Evo France in the process.
Congratulations to @dylnyan for being your HUNTERxHUNTER NENxIMPACT Exhibition Champion at #Evo2025.
— Evo (@Evo) August 2, 2025
We'll see you at Evo France! pic.twitter.com/5rD1UC5zPn
Rivals of Aether II revealed its next character, Galvan, slated for release in October. Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising teased the upcoming EX versions of characters, featuring unique tweaks to each character's special moves and attributes. FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves showed off more footage of the upcoming guest character from Street Fighter, Ken Masters. Invincible VS showed off a ton of new gameplay footage, as did MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls. Sega revealed the upcoming release of Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O.: World Stage, coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in October, with a closed beta test upcoming in September.
Three members of the Fighting Game Community received Cannon Awards recognizing their achievements and contributions to the scene. Javier "Javi" Moreno was the first to receive the award, recognizing his longtime efforts as the creator of Texas Showdown, one of the longest-running fighting game tournaments still operating today, dating back to 2001. Bruno "incross" Arruda was recognized for his work as a fighting game historian and statistician, documenting the FGC as the admin of Liquipedia, among other work. The final Cannon Award for 2025 went to Evan Mau, recognizing his work for Gaming Generations providing equipment for tournaments across the country, including Evo.
Congratulations to our 3 Cannon Award recipients at #Evo2025:
— Evo (@Evo) August 2, 2025
- @crossknockout
- Evan Mau
- @JaviSRK
Thank you for all the hard work you do for the fighting game community. pic.twitter.com/0bi9Sfb56H
The Evo Showcase also featured interviews and shows with players and other talent from the community. Seth Killian interviewed Arslan Ash, talking about Arslan's rise in TEKKEN and how his life has changed thanks to the Fighting Game Community. Jmcrofts hosted a game show, challenging Rynge, Vicious, and Jaidlyn with tests of their fighting game knowledge. Top Street Fighter players competed against each other in Fighters Feud, another FGC-themed game show. Finally, Evo's featured artists, Shinkiro and jbstyle, hosted a panel discussing the power of art in the FGC.
"My message to the young artists will be to continue with whatever you do."
— Evo (@Evo) August 1, 2025
Shinkiro gives a message to young artists everywhere to never stop creating. #Evo2025 pic.twitter.com/AtlvQjWp2k
The night concluded with the main event: OG Hunt, a First-to-10 exhibition match between Justin Wong and rising Street Fighter 6 star Betty. The exhibition was a tennis-style matchup, where the first player to win two first-to-six sets would take the victory. Betty piloted her Juri to an early 2-1 lead in the first set, but Justin Wong locked in, winning the next four consecutive games with his Cammy before Betty was able to finally find another game. It wasn't enough, though, as Justin closed out the first set 6-3.
Justin carried that momentum into the second set, jumping out to a 2-0 lead. But Betty wasn't done. She won 6 rounds in a row to reclaim the lead and force Justin to respond. Justin stopped the bleeding in Game 5, and the rest of the set was back and forth until Betty forced a decisive 11th game, where she was able to clutch up an insane final round to force a tiebreaker.
The third set was the definition back and forth. They split the first two games. Justin took games three and four, and Betty immediately tied it right back up. Justin went up 4-3 only for Betty to tie it up once again with one of the quickest games of the whole exhibition. But Justin wasn't deterred, and he took Game 9 to earn another match point. This time, Justin couldn't be stopped. Betty pushed him nearly all the way to the brink, but it just wasn't enough. Justin Wong broke Betty’s win streak to claim the overall victory. For at least one more night, the OG reigns supreme.
If you missed any of the action from the Evo Showcase, recordings can be found on the Evo Events Youtube channel. Check out the playlist below to find whatever you're interested in from the Evo Showcase, and stay tuned to Evo on Twitch and YouTube as the tournament continues Saturday and Sunday.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtQAiM1Y5luz3RwNliFediFJmMzDjorqi
