Blink Respawn 2026: Punk gets the season started the way he ended the last one

The 2026 Capcom Pro Tour opened at Blink Respawn and, like so many times before, the name still standing at the end was Punk. His Cammy was a round-closing machine again, putting away top-tier opposition like Higuchi and Riddles in Top 8 before running into the ever-present MenaRD.

What the bracket was telling us

Forget the winner for a second — the Top 8 sketched out the year's power map. MenaRD's Blanka is still a problem nobody has fully solved. NoahTheProdigy's Luke confirmed the new generation isn't a promise anymore, it's just here. And Riddles' Terry has settled in as a real tournament weapon, not a novelty.

It's a long year

One Premier settles nothing, but it does set the tone. Punk shows up carrying the weight of the man who won EVO 2024, and he's clearly not planning to hand the throne over. The open question is whether the Japanese bloc or the Dominican wave makes him sweat for it. Every match from the event is in the archive if you want to comb through it clip by clip.