“You always have to be on your toes against E.T.”: Fatal Fury Evo 2025 champion GO1 reveals how he won and next FGC goals

Goichi ‘GO1’ Kishida is the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves champion at Evo 2025.

GO1 is now considered the best Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves player in the world, having won Combo Breaker, Esports World Cup and Evo. He spoke about his intense Grand Final match with Lin ‘ET’ Chia-hung, the Fatal Fury esports scene and his surprising next goals.

GO1 headed into the Top 8 on the Winners side after a perfect weekend, but the Top 8 was stacked, featuring long-time FGC champions from various titles like Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, King of Fighters and Melty Blood.

Interestingly, the Top 8 featured largely ‘older’ players, with the youngest being nearly 30 years old. After the tournament, GO1 told Esports Insider that it made sense that mostly older pros were thriving in Fatal Fury: “With how complicated the game is, these players who’ve been in FGC so long learn the game faster because of their experience. That’s the reason there’s older generations playing. Who knows what will happen later.”

In fact, GO1 and E.T., both around 40 years old, faced each other in the Grand Finals — the two oldest in the Top 8. E.T. had to take down one of the youngest players, 29-year-old Shoji ‘Fenritti’ Sho to climb out of Losers to face GO1 once more.

At first, it seemed like this would be yet another easy win for GO1. E.T. looked stressed after losing the first round to GO1, but he surprisingly turned it around. At one point, GO1 even switched to Marco in hopes of keeping E.T. on his toes, but the strategy didn’t work.

“In previous matches against E.T. before Evo, Marco worked very well. Before the Grand Finals reset, there was that leeway to work with, so I felt I should try it again. But it turns out, E.T. had studied that matchup and now it didn’t work.”

However, E.T. wasn’t the only one training his mind before Evo. GO1 told reporters after the tournament ended that he’d been taking ‘mental training.’ This was how he was able to remain calm when the Reset Grand Final ended up 2-2. Despite noticing that E.T. was rejuvenated in this Top 8, GO1 remained calm and was able to claim the victory after two intense Grand Final matches.

“I’m very happy I won Esports World Cup and Evo. These are high caliber and high prestige tourneys. I’m very happy I could achieve this,” GO1 said.

But what’s next? GO1 shocked the press when he admitted that his next goal is not related to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves at all. Instead, GO1 is hoping to get better at Street Fighter and win a Street Fighter 6 tournament since it’s one of the only fighting games he’s picked up that he hasn’t won at the same level.

GO1 is currently considered one of the best multi-fighting game players of all time, excelling in a wide range of titles. This includes winning Dragon Ball FighterZ tournaments at Evo 2019 and the World Finals.

It’s likely that GO1 won’t be done with Fatal Fury, however. He noted that SNK has been supporting the esports scene’s growth with massive tourneys and big prize pools. For this reason, he expects people to keep grinding — this likely includes the GOAT himself.