First round loss proves too much for Beast to bounce back from

Celtic Throwdown is currently underway in Dublin, Ireland but the dream is already dead for the event's Street Fighter 5 favorite, CYG|Daigo Umehara.

Coming in off last week's Capcom Pro Tour Premier event victory at Hong Kong eSports festival, Daigo and his Guile have established themselves as more of a threat than ever. Given the momentum he's developed over recent months, Daigo was very much expected to not only join, but lead the charge into the top eight bracket along with the likes of RB|Luffy, BX3|Phenom, RZR|Infiltration and a few others.

The Beast's first match was against Jugg Jugg, a Mexican Balrog player just finishing up a year long stay in Bristol, England according to Bristol resident QuoraUK.

Though it would be a close 3-2 finish, Jugg would actually walk away the victor, surprising virtually everyone with a first round slaying of The Beast. He wasn't done though.

Daigo fought on through the losers bracket, taking out four players without losing a single game in the process (12-0). This would earn him a losers finals berth, and waiting there would be none other than Jugg Jugg, defeated in winners finals by Millénium|Will2Pac.

Proving his first win was not a fluke, Jugg took out Daigo a second time with a 3-1 win. Unfortunately, stream hiccups have prevented us from getting much more in the way of highlights, but here are the final moments of their second bout:



Click images for animated versions

Street Fighter 5, as we've heard on repeat, is extremely unforgiving and can be very volatile. Top players have routinely expressed a newfound uneasiness in earlier tournament brackets, simply because of how easy it is for things to slip away at the drop of a hat.

An early loss for a player with such a renowned name as Umehara's is surely jarring, and probably didn't do him any favors in terms of confidence and tournament focus from there on out.

Balrog is a character known for his comeback potential and extremely powerful V-Trigger sequences, but we're hesitant to simply write this off as simply a random Balrog victory.

Yes, Jugg Jugg set himself up for success right from the character select screen, but in going back and watching the tapes we see that Jugg was quite the capable opponent, ready to anti air, capitalize and make the most of many opportunities.

We'll have to wait and see if today was an isolated incident before we start discussing whether or not he's a world class fighter, but maintaining composure long enough to defeat the Beast in two 3/5 round sets is a notable feat in and of itself.

Daigo took to Twitter about half an hour after his second loss to simply remark "Eliminated by the boxer.... What do I do now? lol."

If you'd like to check out their matches, head over the to the BrianVonDoom's Twitch archives page.