The stage was now set for the grand finals, and Shiro was up first against Gosho. You could hear that the crowd was definitely behind the duo of Iyo and Shiro, and the latter acknowledged the crowd with a peace sign just before his fight. Shiro made short work of Gosho, fulfilling the promise he made just minutes before to protect Iyo's Dhalsim from Rufus (the match-up is very much in Rufus' favor), and now it was Iyo's turn to take out Cabbage. Unfortunately for Iyo, that did not happen, as one mistake turned out to be the game-winning play. Near the end of the first round, with Iyo at about half health and Cabbage near death, Iyo tried to backdash to safety, but Cabbage read it perfectly and caught Iyo with Viper's Thunder Knuckle. He then performed a FADC and connected with Viper's Ultra to finish off Iyo. Like the match with Gosho and Mago, Iyo never recovered from that round and ended up losing the next round, setting up the final match between Shiro and Cabbage.

In all honesty I really forgot what happened in this match, other than Shiro had it in the bag in the second round, ended up losing it, and then Cabbage stormed back to win the third round in spectacular fashion to win the whole thing. That, and the fireworks really scared the living daylights out of me, being so close to the stage. During their victory speech, Gosho thanked Cabbage once again for carrying his butt to victory (this was a running gag the entire tournament), which drew a lot of laughter from the crowd, especially since Gosho pretty much owned the #1 player in Japan! After the SF4 finals, about 50% of the audience left the venue, and it was at that point I realized just how much SF4 revived the entire fighting game community. No other game has had an impact like this game, other than the original Street Fighter 2. We had a player known mainly for his King of Fighters prowess (Cabbage) win the whole tournament. Nemo and Kindevu are from the Guilty Gear side of things, and Itabashi Zangief and Fuudo are known for being the top Virtua Fighter players in the country. Yet all of them have moved on to Street Fighter 4, which is saying a lot about how this game has impacted fighters this year.

The amount of time required to get to the level of these players at SBO is unimaginable, and I for one know that I'll never have that much time to play, but seeing these guys play their hearts out and seeing the emotions on their faces in times of victory and defeat is nothing short of inspiring to someone like me. I have been to SBO multiple times now, but this year for sure was the best one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens at next year's event!