This article is part of our Dragon Ball FighterZ series.
Now that the dust has settled at the Summit of Power, I thought it'd be worthwhile to look back at my power rankings from before the event and see how they stacked up to the final results. With Eduardo "HookGangGod" Hook taking the tournament by storm, I didn't get to talk about much else during last night's recap. So join me as we wade through what remains of the Summit of Power.
1. HookGangGod (Pre-Summit Ranking: 5)
What. A. Beast. Hook's been considering dropping Piccolo from his team for a few weeks now, but you can bet that those thoughts are completely gone at this point. Not only did he take down Dominique "SonicFox" McLean in the grand finals, but he also beat Goichi "GO1" Kishida in the grand finals. Not only does he have the honor of being the only player to ever defeat that pair in the same tournament, but he did it with Piccolo. I see you, Hook!
2. SonicFox (Pre-Summit Ranking: 2)
The Fox finally fell. Just two weeks removed from finally exercising his own demons by defeating Goichi to win Combo Breaker, SonicFox was the demon being exercised at the Summit House. He and Hook matchup almost every single week at Next Level Battle Circuit in New York where SonicFox has always come out on top. During the Summit, though, HookGangGod was on a tear that even SonicFox couldn't stop. To those thinking that SonicFox is now suddenly washed up, you couldn't be farther from the truth. He'll be fine and will try and prove that in a first-to-10 that will (probably) be happening at CEO later this month.
3. Sho "Fenritti" Shoji (Pre-Summit Ranking: 9)
This man seemingly came out of nowhere and ran through some people this weekend. First, he took out the surging Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue 3-1 in the winners' quarterfinals before knocking SonicFox into the losers' bracket in another 3-1. He then proceeded to lose 3-2 to HookGangGod and 3-0 to SonicFox in the losers' finals, but still, what a performance from Fenritti this weekend. Not bad for a guy who only qualified for the Summit a couple weeks back at Combo Breaker. I'm very excited to see what he's got at future tournaments.
4. GO1 (Pre-Summit Ranking: 2)
How the mighty have fallen. Just a few weeks ago, I asked whether anyone could beat Goichi after he had managed to win every single tournament he's attended in the lifespan of Dragon Ball FighterZ. Then he lost to SonicFox at Combo Breaker at the end of May. Then he lost twice this weekend. Losing to SonicFox in the losers' semifinals probably wasn't the most surprising thing ever, but losing to HookGangGod in the winners' semifinals certainly was one of the biggest surprises of the weekend. After looking immortal for months, Goichi is now very much human. Who will be next to slay the giant?
5. Vineeth "ApologyMan" Meka (Pre-Summit Ranking: 15)
The other Piccolo, everyone. Hook may have gotten farthest with his Piccolo, but ApologyMan didn't do too bad himself. The unsigned player put on a nice showing for himself this weekend, making it all the way to losers' quarters before falling to Goichi in a 3-0 sweep. Along the way, he picked up some solid wins over Steve "Lord Knight" Barthelemy and Reynald "Reynald" Tacsuan, rounding out quite the resume over the three-day competition.
6. Kazunoko (Pre-Summit Ranking: 6)
Yamcha, the man. Kazunoko showed everyone the strength of the Wolf Fang Fist with one hell of a run at the Summit House this weekend. He lost to Fenritti 3-1 in the winners' quarterfinals, but then bounced back in a big way. First he made easy work of the surprisingly struggling Osaka Ryo "Dogura" Nozaki, and then bodied moke 3-0. Then it was time for SonicFox in the losers' quarterfinals. He almost did it. Things went all five games, but he just couldn't get past the Fox and was bounced prematurely.
7-8. Reynald (Pre-Summit Ranking: 12)
I definitely underestimated Reynald coming into this tournament. Not only did he whoop Christopher "ChrisG" Gonzalez 3-0 in the opening losers' round match, but he beat down William "Leffen" Hjelte 3-1 to boot. In the losers' Top 8 match, he faced ApologyMan (another guy I underestimated) and narrowly lost a 3-2 match. I promise I won't underestimate you again, Reynald!
7-8. Naoki "moke" Nakayama (Pre-Summit Ranking: 13)
Moke had the unfortunate task of going up against SonicFox in the winners' quarterfinals, which put him right into the losers' bracket. He might have taken out Jonathan "Cloud805" Morales 3-1 in his first match, but he was no match for Kazunoko (who was seriously on his game this weekend) in a 3-0 loss.
9-12. Lord Knight (Pre-Summit Ranking: 14)
The Chris Rock look-alike had the benefit of going up against Yohosie in the first round of the losers' bracket, which padded his ranking a bit. No offense whatsoever to Dawn "Yohosie" Hosie, but Lord Knight was just on another level in his 3-0 win. Once up against ApologyMan in the next round, though, he was ran through in a 3-1 set.
9-12. Cloud805 (Pre-Summit Ranking: 10)
While his final ranking basically matched my prediction perfectly, he performed much better than I thought he would nonetheless. Everyone at the tournament said that he spent a ton of time labbing after losing to SonicFox in groups, and it certainly showed. He stood tall against Jon "dekillsage" Coello in the first losers' round and then picked up a single game before being defeated by moke. He may not have gotten as far as he wanted, you can bet that this Hit Box hero will be back in action at CEO to get things back on track.
9-12. Leffen (Pre-Summit Ranking: 11)
Well, damn. Like I said in my preview, this was Leffen's chance to show that he could stand up against the best of the best. He may have fought his way into the winners' side of the bracket, he had a very short day on Sunday. He was washed by both Goichi and Reynald in a pair of 3-1 series. Still, for a guy who is splitting time between games, that's not too bad? Whenever we see him next, though, he will almost assuredly be rocking a new team since he wasn't happy with Android 21.
9-12. Dogura (Pre-Summit Ranking: 3)
Much like Goichi not making grand finals, Dogura falling this low was quite the shock. He was widely seen as the third best player on the planet and he looked incredibly human all weekend. After going 0-3 during the group stage, he had a hard road on Sunday. He opened with a close 3-2 win over Derek "Nakkiel" Bruscas, but then was handily taken out by Kazunoko in a 3-1 match during the second losers' match. He's another guy that was having a bit of a character crisis, as he was switching out characters all weekend. Look for him to hit the lab and come back when we next see him.
13-16. Nakkiel (Pre-Summit Ranking: 7)
The man with the luscious locks didn't have the greatest of showings at Summit of Power. He had some incredibly insightful commentary during the final few matches of the day, but his play was a bit subpar. When he lost that heartbreaker to moke and his magic pixel of health, it was basically over for Nakkiel. He managed to push Dogura to the brink in their first losers' round match, but he came up short 3-2.
13-16. dekillsage (Pre-Summit Ranking: 8)
Unlike his NLBC brethren who were in the grand finals, dekillsage had a rough go this weekend. He may have had some sparks of greatness during the Combo Contest on Saturday night, but he fell short in the singles bracket. Going up against the red-hot Cloud805, he was defeated 3-1.
13-16. ChrisG (Pre-Summit Ranking: 4)
This is probably my most surprising result of all. As you can see, I valued ChrisG very high coming into Summit of Power and he just wasn't on top of it this weekend. There was some talk that his stick may have been broken or malfunctioning (which would explain all the dropped combos), but whatever it was, it led to some ugly play. He was stomped 3-0 by Reynald in his first match of the losers' bracket on Sunday.
13-16. Yohosie (Pre-Summit Ranking: 16)
This is one that I actually hate to be wrong about. I wanted to see what the OG Gotenks player could bring to the table, but unfortunately, it just wasn't her weekend. After going 0-9 during the group stage, she was easily taken out by Lord Knight to finish the weekend 0-12. On to CEO?
