The 2004 Evolution Championship Series (often called Evo 2004 or EVO 2004) was a fighting game competition held at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in Pomona, California, from July 29 to August 1. The event included nine fighting games in its main lineup, such as Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Unlike earlier Evolution events, where all matches were played on arcade machines, most tournaments at Evo 2004 used video game consoles, except for Street Fighter III.

Evo 2004 included the first Street Fighter match between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong, during which Umehara used a special move called the "Daigo Parry." The final match of the Soulcalibur II tournaments at Evo 2004, which was controversial, led to the creation of a collusion rule that is still used today.

Background

The sixth Evolution Championship Series took place at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in Southern California from July 29 to August 1, 2004. Evo 2004 had about 700 players from more than 30 countries, who competed in one or more of the nine tournaments held during the event. To help staff manage the event better and give players more time to compete, the tournament format changed from double elimination to a system that combined round-robin matches with double elimination. In the old format, players could be eliminated after losing two games, but the new system allowed each participant to play against at least nine other players during the initial stage of the tournament.

In 2004, the fighting game community was in a period Tom Cannon later called the "Dark Ages," a time when many game developers stopped making fighting games. Despite this, the Evolution Championship Series continued to grow each year and became the largest fighting game tournament of its time.

Before Evo 2004, all Evolution events used arcade cabinets for gameplay. However, arcade equipment was hard to obtain, especially for games not based on Capcom’s CP System II. These machines also often had technical problems. Many competitors also complained that the arcade hardware at Evolution was different from what they practiced on. To fix these issues, organizers decided to use only video game consoles for the tournament. Players were required to bring their own game controllers. The only exception was the Street Fighter III: Third Strike tournament, which used arcade hardware because the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection was delayed until August.

Organizers also changed team tournaments from exhibition matches to a key part of the event. Two team tournaments—Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2—were specifically seeded, and a Pair Play tournament for Tekken Tag Tournament was held. Evo 2004 also included a "Bring Your Own Console" area, where people could set up smaller tournaments for games not on the main event list.

Evo Moment #37

Despite having never competed against each other before, Japanese player Daigo Umehara and American player Justin Wong were believed to have a rivalry because of their different approaches to gaming. They faced each other in the match for third place at the Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike tournament during Evo 2004. Umehara, using the character Ken, had only one unit of health left. Any special move from Wong's character, Chun-Li, could defeat Ken. Wong tried to hit Umehara repeatedly with Chun-Li's "Super Art" move, forcing Umehara to block 15 attacks quickly. Umehara successfully blocked all of them and then countered with a final kick from Chun-Li in mid-air. He followed this by performing a combo move and won the match. The moment Umehara blocked Wong's repeated attacks became very famous and was compared to well-known sports events, such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice.

The Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike tournament was won by Kenji "KO" Obata, who played as Yun. He defeated Umehara in the finals, just as he had done the year before at Evo 2003.

Soulcalibur IIincident

The final match of the Soulcalibur II tournament at Evo 2004 was played between friends Rob "RTD" Combs and Marquette "Mick" Yarbrough. Many people believed the two players were working together unfairly and not competing seriously. They used characters they typically did not play and performed at a level lower than usual. Combs and Yarbrough denied these claims when questioned on Game Show Network's Games Across America. Although they were not directly punished, Evo later added a "collusion rule," stating that players who intentionally manipulate matches or underperform would lose prizes and titles. In 2013, Evo-founder Tom Cannon told GiantBomb, "they broke the spirit of the tournament… We made sure this would never happen again." Evo's anti-collusion rule was updated in 2013 and remains in effect today.