It seems the legend is not ready to hand over the keys to the next generations yet
Reject|Daigo Umehara is known around the world as the first professional fighting game player, and The Beast has continued to compete for three decades now.
But going into his big match against WBG|MenaRD at Kemonomichi Legends this week, Umehara was apparently preparing himself for retirement.
Now that the event is over with, Daigo took to his stream to discuss everything including his mentality going into the set against the two-time Capcom Cup champion and what he’s feeling now.
Thanks to Jiyuna, we can get the breakdown of what the fighting game legend talked about, which was seemingly quite a lot.
According to Jiyuna, Umehara was seriously planning on retiring from competing if he lost to MenaRD because he has not felt “strong” in Street Fighter 6 and was missing the motivation to improve like in the past.
After training hard for three months, though, he reportedly thought to himself in this last week “Wait a minute. Am I strong again? This is what it felt like back in the day.”
Daigo on stream talking about Kemonomichi. He says he seriously planned on retiring if he lost to Mena. The reason being that since SF6 release he has not felt “strong” or the motivation to improve like in his youth in the arcade days. But after 3 months of training, in the final…
— J I Y U N A (@jiyunaJP) April 30, 2026
Daigo did end up losing 10-6 to Mena, but the set was a lot closer than many believed it would be and could have resulted much differently had just a number of late interactions gone his way.
The Beast was apparently feeling incredibly stressed leading up to Kemonomichi, and while he says he slept easy the night before, Umehara woke up with tears in his eyes.
He reportedly said he wasn’t sure why, but he thinks he had a dream about quitting fighting games.
2026年4月30日 ウメハラ獣道 後日談配信
スト６で初めて「自分が強いな」と思えて嬉しかった話／負けたら現役を辞めようと思っていた話／涙がボタッと落ちた話／タクシーでえいたのデスボイスがうるさかった話／若い頃の「負ける訳にはいかない」という必死な気持ちがまた戻ってきた話 pic.twitter.com/KF7PyJTnsJ
— 格ゲーマークリップス (@FGAMER_clips) April 30, 2026
Despite the set being pretty close, Daigo was still thinking about retiring following the loss.
While riding the taxi back to Tokyo, however, one of his contemporaries in Eita begged him not to quit.
Jiyuna reports that Umehara agreed to shut him up at the time, but he continued reflecting on the experience afterwards.
The Beast thought he could try and keep that same motivation and training approach he had for Kemonomichi and become truly strong again.
For now, Daigo has decided to continue competing, but he is apparently taking a short break for now after the set.
At almost 45 years old, it’s not that surprising Umehara would reconsider his current path since he’s been competing for nearly 30 years and hasn’t seen the success in Street Fighter 6 he had in previous games — though he was part of the Street Fighter League World Championship team this year and already secured a spot in Capcom Cup 13 next year.
This mindset does sound different though than what we recently just heard out of Daigo’s Evo Legends interview where he said he wanted to try and continue to play as long as he could physically.
“I want to try my best again. It was so fun. Those 3 months were the best.
Thank you, Mena.”
— J I Y U N A (@jiyunaJP) April 30, 2026
So while he may have lost the set, Kemonomichi appears to have reinvigorated his fighting spirit and show that Daigo can still go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world.
This is pretty fitting coming from the guy who wrote the book titled “The Will to Keep Winning.”
Umehara did previously quit fighting games for around four years from 2004 to 2008 right after Evo Moment #37, but his friend pestered him to try Street Fighter 4, which revived his competitive drive back then too.
The fighting game community would be very different without Daigo around, so we’re glad he’s still here and his heart is still in the game.
If you haven’t already, it really is worth checking out Daigo and MenaRD’s Kemonomichi bout, which we’ve included below.