Cygames, the creators of Granblue Fantasy which happens to have its own fighting game franchise, have made several other games as well with one of their most successful ones being Uma Musume Pretty Derby.
This game has been a hit in Japan ever since it came out a few years ago and has several anime series based on it as well. Just a few weeks ago, the global version of the game was released and it’s started to take off in the west as well… and one of the characters has inspired fighting game content creators in an unexpected way.
To give some brief context on the game and what’s going on here, it’s basically a horse racing simulator but, as Japan often does with their media, the horses have been replaced with cute anime girls (who are all based on actual race horses as far as their names, personalities and such go, interestingly enough.)
One particularly rambunctious horse called Gold Ship is true to character in the game and as is in her rebellious nature, she appears to go in for a hug when she wins a race only to swiftly transition into a dropkick instead, smashing the viewer (who is meant to be the player character) to the ground.
If you’re not already aware of what’s coming, the drop kick is a bit of a jumpscare in and of itself, which has led fighting game content creators to take it a step further by transitioning straight into actual fighting game dropkicks and combos.
The X trend of doing this the last few days started off with X used SP A Bad Idea posting one featuring Street Fighter 6’s Zangief and challenging the community by saying “Okay FGC umabros, show me your Goldship combos.” You can check out this initial post embedded below.
Okay FGC umabros, show me your Goldship combos. pic.twitter.com/2yK1E4oM9m
— A Bad Idea (@SP_A_Bad_Idea) July 14, 2025
Even this user was most likely not prepared for just how many would actually be up for said challenge — and we’re going to showcase some of the best ones via X embeds below.
My personal favorite comes from X user HyFen who even went out of their way to customize Tekken 8’s Lili to be as close to Gold Ship herself as possible. You can see the multi-dropkick combo below.
Anything but training bro… https://t.co/MhMvDLSH4C pic.twitter.com/rDUErVEUxu
— HyFen (@itshyfen) July 16, 2025
One that’s a bit more liberal with the concept of a dropkick comes from Keaton_756 on X who uses Dragon Ball FighterZ and Goku’s more vertically aligned two-leg kick to present a different take on dropkick loops.
I think I’m too far gone https://t.co/6dUVlfIcwM pic.twitter.com/UmzwpR4aMZ
— Keat (@Keaton_756) July 16, 2025
Finally, you can’t talk about dropkicks in fighting games without remembering the OG Final Fight superstar Mike Haggar. Thankfully, X user Renko the Rock has us covered with this Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 rendition of the Uma Musume meme.
that combo https://t.co/z7VAD2iblx pic.twitter.com/jSI10sOS96
— Renko the Rock🥴 (@MayojoHopper) July 15, 2025
It’s funny how something entirely unrelated to fighting games can grab the community by storm like this and inspire people to throw together sequences of these games we love and get incredible reach on it that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
HyFen’s Lili video for example has almost 7,000 reposts and 38,000 likes — a massive number and definitely a nice reward for the effort put in.
Have you seen any good meme videos of the Gold Ship dropkick? Share them in the comments if you want, I’d love to see more funny ones.