When Arslan Siddique finally got a visa to go to his first Evolution Championship Series (Evo) in Japan, in February 2019, he had to book a last-minute flight that had multiple cancellations and it took him two and a half days to land in Fukuoka, four hours before his Tekken 7 match was about to begin. Three days later, he competed in the finals against Alexandre 'AK' Laverez from the Philippines. Arslan won, and nobody understood how. Just a few months later, in August, came the international Evo 2019 in the United States, where top players from Europe and the Americas were also competing.
He came up against his old rival from Korea in the finals, Jae-Min Bae 'Knee' – by all accounts, the world's most experienced Tekken player and winner of eight previous tournaments. Arslan had previously beaten him in Japan in the semi-finals and in Dubai at a smaller scale tournament in 2018. This was the same year he won King of Fighters IV tournaments in Oman and Kuwait, often using his favourite character Ash, which he takes his gaming moniker from. In America, Arslan was the only participant in the knockout stages who was not from a high-income country, the only one who almost missed the tournament because of visa problems. His win in Japan was called a fluke, beginners' luck; a narrative that went like this: "the world didn't know about Pakistani Tekken playstyles, it was new, hence effective, but he would be figured out soon". Well, he wasn't figured out soon enough. He beat Knee 3-2.
Arslan played as Kazumi, a woman in a white kimono wearing a red slash around her waist. The game casters were confused when Knee's intimidating character Devil Jin with demon wings kept losing round after round to Arslan's solid defence and devastating combos. "Where's Pakistan?" one asked in exasperation. "What's Pakistan?" the other replied. But Knee already knew.
After Arslan won the trophy, he took to the floor to place his forehead on the ground in supplication. Then he lifted his fists towards the 9000 people cheering for him in the crowd, and the USD 14,000 prize money waiting for him. They did not know who he was before, but they had found out now. He was the champion.