Daigo Umehara
Japanese electronic sports player · Japan · On the map · Gamers · Born 1981 · age 45
He holds a Guinness World Record for Street Fighter tournament wins and a nickname - "The Beast" - that stuck because longevity at the top of competitive fighting games is supposed to be impossible. Daigo Umehara made it look routine.
Daigo Umehara is read about 401 times a day, in 10 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 11 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.
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On YouTube
290K subscribersAbout this person
Born 19 May 1981, Umehara grew up in Japan specializing in 2D arcade fighters, mostly Capcom titles, at a time when the genre's competitive scene was still taking shape. Japanese media called him "the god of 2D fighting games" before the term "pro gamer" had much purchase - before he signed with Mad Catz and the sponsorship economy formalized what he'd already been doing for years. He racked up six Evo Championship Series titles and became the most successful player in major Street Fighter tournaments by Guinness measure, a span of dominance rare in esports where careers tend to burn fast. He also wrote, turning the rigor that made him unbeatable into something you could read. The West knows him as "The Beast." In Japan, where they write his name in katakana, he's simply Ume.
