South Korea came out swinging in this year’s Esports World Cup.
Last year, he was on top of the world. This year, he’s successfully defended his throne as Ulsan claims the title of EWC 2025 Tekken 8 champion. He alone is left standing after playing through a Korea-dominated 32-man tournament.
As the 2024 champion, Lim “Ulsan” Soo-hoon was automatically invited to the EWC 2025 Tekken 8 tournament. That’s quite the boon considering that the remaining competitors had to earn their spot in the EWC. But that didn’t mean that Ulsan spent the rest of the year relaxing while waiting for the big day.
Ulsan continued participating in major Tekken tournaments to keep his skills sharp. He took first in South Korea’s SOOP TEKKEN League 2004: Champions at the start of the year and had top-eight finishes in Evo Japan 2025, Battle Arena Melbourne 15, and CEO 2025. He had a pretty big stumble in Evo 2025 after getting knocked out in pools, but he wasn’t going to let that slow him down.
At Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ulsan was in championship-winning form. He stumbled again early in the group stage after losing to Kim “Kkokkoma” Mu-jong, but he would get his revenge against him and eliminate him later in the bracket. More importantly, Ulsan was able to eliminate Arlsan “Arslan Ash” Siddique, the six-time Evo Tekken champion.
With one of the heavy favorites out of the tournament, it seemed like nothing was going to stop Ulsan from becoming the EWC 2025 Tekken 8 champion. Playoffs made that abundantly clear as not even the legendary Yoon “LowHigh” Sun-woong could make a dent against him. With a final score 5-2 against LowHigh in the grand finals, Ulsan once again earns the right to raise the EWC trophy.
Banner photo from Esports World Cup.