EWC Tekken 8 grand finals: Ulsan defends his title, makes history as back-to-back champion

Lim “Ulsan” Soo-hoon is officially a back-to-back Tekken 8 champion at the Esports World Cup (EWC). This achievement is unprecedented in the fighting game community, just in terms of the sheer amount of prize money and prestige that Ulsan has earned himself through the EWC alone — making him a true one-of-one in the world of Tekken and in fighting games as a whole.

He accomplished this feat by winning every single match in the single elimination top 8 bracket, going through extremely tough opponents like PINYA, Kim “CBM” Jae-hyun, and eventually, Yoon “LowHigh” Sun-woong in the grand final match. For his incredible efforts, Ulsan will take home yet another $250,000 in prize money, and contributes a whopping 1,000 EWC Club Championship points to his team DN Freecs.

The Sambo Master

The fact that Ulsan actually defended his title playing Dragunov, a character that has fallen off precipitously in Tekken 8 Season 2, just makes his back-to-back championships all the more impressive. Season 2 encourages extreme, almost mindless aggression — something that Dragunov used to be built for in Season 1, but not in Season 2.

Instead, Dragunov is back to being a mediocre poking character. Ulsan must not have received the memo on this, though, because he ran through the entire tournament looking completely unfazed by the nerfs to his character. He believed in Dragunov until the very end, and the Russian Sambo practitioner rewarded him for his loyalty with a second EWC title.

Seriously, the kind of play he displayed throughout the tournament was on another level. In the grand final match alone, he dismantled LowHigh’s Bryan with uncanny Salvo (1,2,1) counter hit confirms, which swung the momentum in his favor more times than what could be called reasonable. But Ulsan doesn’t care about what’s reasonable — he just cares about winning and doing whatever it takes to win.

Spectacular show

This Tekken 8 tournament at the Esports World Cup was insane. The level of competition on display was simply off the charts, and provided a ton of compelling storylines that kept everyone, players and spectators alike, on their toes the whole way through.

Without a doubt, the most shocking thing that happened at the event was the elimination of both Atif “Atif Butt” Ijaz and Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique before either of them even reached the top 8. Pakistan had a rather poor showing overall at the EWC this year, as basically every player from the Pakistani delegation looked ill-prepared to compete at such a high stakes tournament.

I’m out of EWC, and I know my mistakes cost me a lot this time. I feel disappointed that I couldn’t deliver the win for my fans, but I’m truly grateful for all the support you’ve given me. Thank you for always standing by me. @FalconsEsport

Honestly, the Korean players are…

— Fᴀʟᴄᴏɴ | ᴀᴛɪꜰ (@AtifButt540) August 16, 2025

Arslan and Atif especially put on a terrible display for themselves, losing in the second phase despite playing the two best characters in the game in Anna and Nina. Instead, it was their rival country South Korea that enjoyed the spoils at the event, locking down six of the eight spots in the top 8 and doing it in style.

There was also the hot streak by Son “qudans” Byeong-mun, who took Heihachi all the way to the last phase of the tournament as if he was 18 years old again (he won Evo 20 years ago). He was actually the one responsible for the fact that Arslan was on the losers’ side of his group in top 16. Stopped only by Jeon “Jeondding” Sang-hyun in the first round of the playoffs, qudans’ unexpected success at the EWC was truly a sight to behold for fans of legacy Tekken players.

CBM also making it to third place after a long season of somewhat middling results was nice to see, knowing just how hard he works and how much of a fan favorite he is among spectators outside of South Korea.

Do it again

But truly, no story was more inspiring than Ulsan winning it all once again, a year removed from doing it the first time in 2024. If he keeps this up, like perhaps by winning Evo France in October or the Tekken World Tour (TWT) Finals this coming January, we might have to start putting him in the conversation of top 10 Tekken players of all time, at the very least.

🏆 HE DOES IT AGAIN 🏆@tekkenUlsan wins TEKKEN 8 at EWC pic.twitter.com/jdjB3ttPjx

— Esports World Cup (@EWC_EN) August 16, 2025

As for LowHigh, he unfortunately falls short of the championship and preventing Ulsan from bagging back-to-back titles. He played an amazing Bryan throughout the entire tournament, and he absolutely deserves his flowers for getting as far as he did. We’ll definitely see him at more TWT events for the rest of the season, and maybe he’ll even win one before the TWT Finals come around.

The Pakistanis have some serious work to do if they want to get their revenge on South Korea, though. At this point, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that they cannot simply rely on Arslan and Atif to carry them wherever they go. The ones further down the pecking order in the Pakistani scene will have to play much better if they want to keep this rivalry going.