Saúl Mena is a Dominican gamer, known as "MenaRD" and has just made history, by becoming the first two-time CapCom Cup IX champion in February 2023 and previously in 2017. On this occasion he received a prize of USD$120,000 and in 2017 of USD$250,000. CapCom is the largest annual fighting game tournament, centered around the Street Fighter series, involving players from all over the world with an audience of over 2 million people.
But Mena has an interesting story. He is a 23-year-old young man who was born and raised in the María Auxiliadora neighborhood. Son of a marketing professional and a police officer. It is the story of a boy full of dreams, who comes from a humble family with few resources, who borrowed a playstation to participate in local championships.
Mena is the youngest of her brothers and shared a house with her cousins. He was the chubby little brother/cousin, little one, who was bullied. No one trusted that he would amount to anything important. Little by little, the peers and his family began to trust him, he won among the cousins, among the brothers, among the friends, so the word about him spread as he won over everyone in the neighborhood.
Mena wanted to show people that he was good at “something.” Then he would try harder, concentrate more. His free time, when he finished studying, which by the way, he was a very good student, was for playing, thinking and developing strategies.
From there begins his passion for competitions, for winning. He began to participate in local youth tournaments, there he was gaining confidence and self-assurance. Mena in video games he found his sport, his passion and an option where he could stand out from the path of crime and delinquency that many young people take in the neighborhood.
Today, Mena aspires to train as a psychologist and to be able to accompany other Dominican gamers to achieve their dreams, supporting them from mental health and comprehensive training, understanding that eSports, like any other sport, requires a lot of discipline, commitment, perseverance and training. to develop skills and abilities.
His vision is also to support the Gamer community that has always been there – in fact, they were the ones who made the collections for his participation in the first championship in 2016.
Welcome back home. Dominican Republic wins again.@banditsgaming_
I love you, FGC. pic.twitter.com/eENmZWrNHa
— Bandits MenaRD ????(?? ??????) (@_MenaRD__) February 20, 2023