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After leading Team Bandits to victory at the Street Fighter League 2025 US Finals, MenaRD has cemented his status as one of the series’ greatest players of all time… but he’s not done yet.
Dominican Street Fighter pro Saul Leonardo ‘MenaRD’ Mena II boasts a laundry list of achievements that few other fighting game players can match. He’s a three-time Evo champion, on top of being the only person in history to ever win Capcom Cup twice.
He’s been on a tear in 2025, winning Evo Japan, Evo Las Vegas, and even taking home the Street Fighter League US Pro-US Finals in a stunning Grand Finals set against fellow fighting game star Victor ‘Punk’ Woodley.
This match, specifically, showed just how dominant Mena has become. He seemed to have an answer for Punk’s every move, even when his opponent switched characters from Cammy to Akuma in a last-ditch effort to interrupt his mental download.
We got the chance to speak with MenaRD after this thrilling victory, where we asked him how he feels about joining Street Fighter legends like Daigo, Tokido, and Nuki in the GOAT category.
MenaRD is embracing his status as the new GOAT of Street Fighter
Surprisingly, Mena revealed that he’s at peace with this label, and said that he’s got much more he’d like to accomplish in his career. Specifically, he mentioned that he wants to win his third Capcom Cup, take Evo France, and finally earn the title of Esports World Cup Champion.
“Honestly, it’s a pretty crazy thing,” he admitted. “It’s something that I always thought about when I was young, but now it’s a reality, and it’s been a reality for a while. I just think there’s more to do. There’s always another thing to do, and I gotta keep motivated and play every day to achieve greater things.
“Now it’s a matter of, I feel at peace. I feel good that I was able to help my friends, but if I had lost, I was going to feel pretty bad. So it’s about that. It’s about having that peace and earning that relief now.”
MenaRD says Daigo “isn’t prepared” for his skills in long-awaited FT10 match
One of these “greater things” he’d like to accomplish is perhaps the biggest achievement a Street Fighter player can attain: beating Daigo Umehara in a first-to-ten set.
Daigo was Japan’s first-ever professional gamer and is one of the Five Gods of fighting games. While his competitive results have waned with Street Fighter’s most recent titles, his skills in Third Strike, the Alpha series, and SFIV remain uncontested.
Daigo is known for ‘downloading’ players in lengthy sets, specifically first-to-ten battles, where he’s whittled down some of Street Fighter’s greatest talents so harshly that they’ve shed tears.
Earlier this year, MenaRD put forward an official request to Daigo asking for a first-to-ten exhibition match. It’s been months since then, with nothing organized at the time of writing… but Mena is confident that it’ll happen soon. And when it does, he’s sure that he’ll win.
“I think it’s coming this year,” he told us. “I’m willing to wait forever, but I think it’s coming this year.
“I’m extremely confident, 10 out of 10. I feel like he’s going to come stronger than what everybody thinks, but I think nobody knows how strong I’m going to come for that set, so he’s not going to be prepared for me.”
Now, all that’s left is for Mena to prepare for Capcom Cup and the Street Fighter League World Finals, where Team Bandits will face off against the EU’s Ninjas in Pyjamas and the as-yet undetermined team from Japan.
