Filipino Tekken superstar Alexandre Laverez grabbed his first championship title this year, ruling over the 241-player field in the Chain Shift 2026 Tekken 8 (T8) tournament held last June 22 in La Mirada, California.

The currently ranked World No. 12 now heads to Paris to compete at the Esports World Cup, an offline French T8 tournament, on Aug. 4-7. He was a Top 32 finisher at the Evolution Championship Series (commonly known as EVO) at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada last June 26-28.

Laverez, known in the gaming community as “AK,” tore through the field at T8 with his signature fighter Shaheen and did not drop any set from the Top 32 to the Upper Bracket Finals. He demolished reigning Tekken World Tour champion Sun-woong “LowHigh” Yoon, 3-1, to barge into the championship round.

Tekken, a Japanese media franchise, is a series of fighting games developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Its only Filipino character, Josie Rizal—described as a cheerful yet timid kickboxer who practices the Filipino martial art of “eskrima”—was introduced in Tekken 7 but is not included in the list of current characters in Tekken 8.

For his feat, the 25-year-old Laverez earned a cash prize of $1,964 (around P120,000) and 300 World Tour Points for his first Challenger-tier tournament of the 2026 season.

In their rematch in the grand finals, South Korea’s Yoon, piloting Bryan, was a round away from resetting the bracket with a 0-2 set lead, when the Filipino brawler strung three consecutive rounds to steal the third set and capture the two succeeding frames (3-2, 3-1) to complete a reverse sweep for the crown.

What made the victory sweeter for Laverez was that he did so before a “home crowd” on international soil with Filipino fans cheering on online, waving images of the Philippine flag.

“Salamat, mga Kabayan! ” he responded on his Facebook account.

AK crossed from California to Nevada to compete as one of the 1,355 participants at EVO 2026. He got through the pooling phase and advanced to the Lower Bracket of the Knockout stage.

The Filipino ended his run in the Top 32 after a sweep at the hands of Muhammad “Dawood Sikandar” Dawood while gaining 70 World Tour Points.

Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique is the top seed and champion of EVO Las Vegas with 1,450 points, immediately qualifying for the Global Finals.

Tournament points

In the professional circuit for Tekken 8, or the Tekken World Tour (TWT), competitors engage in varying levels of tournaments scattered in many countries during an eight-month timeline. Their goal: secure a slot in the Global Finals, the premier culminating event of the season.

The 20 spots in the Global Finals are bagged through the Global Leaderboard by gathering points from the tournaments that are separated into four tiers—Masters+, Masters, Challengers and Dojos.

• Masters+ events are the highest-rated tournaments that feature thousands of entrants in an open-bracket format, giving circuit points to the Top 129 finishers. The champion earns a direct slot to the Global Finals.

• Masters events, on the other hand, are the second-highest ranked that award points to the Top 49 competitors. 

• Challengers events are community- and regionally based tournaments, which give a generous amount of circuit points to the Top 25 players.

• Dojos are smaller regional meets where points depend on the number of entrants.

The Top 16 players in the Global Leaderboard advance to the Group Stage of the Global Finals, while the champions of each Masters+ tournament proceed directly to the Bracket Stage.

Players may enter as many tournaments as possible, but their final rankings on the Global Leaderboard are computed by adding their acquired points from their Top 4 Masters+/Masters runs, Top 2 Challenger event finishes and Top 2 placings for Dojo events.

Laverez cleared the qualification mark in the 12th spot sitting at 700 points, contested closely by Global No. 13 Jae-min “Knee” Bae of South Korea at 680 points. Japanese player “Matsuba” currently occupies the last qualifying seed with 535 points.

AK earned 300 points at the season opener in EVO Japan 2026, where he placed fourth for the first Masters+ event, before taking a Top 48 finish in Combo Breaker 2026 last May.

His fourth-place finish in EVO Japan also secured his second appearance in the Esports World Cup in Paris, where the third Global Finals spot is up for grabs for one of the 32 battlers, alongside a major share of a million-dollar prize pool.