Before he burst onto the international spotlight, when he made himself the 16th player to take a set off of Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios a mere month after his first US tournament, Leonardo "MKLeo" Perez was already a name well-known throughout his native Mexico.

In the summer of 2015, a solid year and a half before he took his first set off of ZeRo, MKLeo was already established as the best player in Mexico.





His victory at Smash Factor 4 over Ramin "Mr. R" Delshad at the end of July 2015 also allowed the (at the time) 14-year old Meta Knight main to establish himself as an international threat.





The Meta Knight he used at the time made expert use of the characters quick, aggressive sword swings and the threat presented by his vicious short hops in neutral to create his openings.

I won EVO without dropping games. I ain't scared of anybody. If he wants to challenge me, fine, then he comes to the US to compete. @xD1x — ZeRo (@TSMZeRo) July 27, 2015

Right after this historic victory, MKLeo made his name known even more by publicly calling out ZeRo and saying he would two-stock the world's best player. However, the Mexican prodigy didn't have a visa at the time, so the beef would stay exclusively on Twitter.





Between July 2015 when MKLeo first called out ZeRo and November 2016 when he would finally get his first crack at the #1 player, MKLeo saw a change of mains.





When he finally traveled to the US for KTAR XIX, MKLeo would have dropped the nerfed Meta Knight for the buffed Marth and also have a very accomplished Cloud as his dual-main.

Finally, on Nov. 19, 2016, MKLeo got his first shot at ZeRo in winners finals of KTAR XIX. He didn't manage to two stock or beat the Diddy main, but he took him to game five and gave ZeRo a run for his money.





Moreover, MKLeo proved his status as a potential top-10 player at that KTAR with a 3-2 victory over Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada.

Finally, MKLeo would achieve his victory over ZeRo at the 2GGT: ZeRo Saga, a tournament that MKLeo made even more important for himself by also winning. Since then, Mexico's best player has also taken first at GENESIS 4 and the Umebura Japan Major.





The lowest placement he's ever seen at a massively stacked tournament was at 2GGC: Civil War, where he placed 65th. While notably low for him, the tournament very well could have been named 2GGC: Upset Saga for how many players placed far below expectations.

After his incredible performance at the ZeRo Saga, MKLeo earned himself a top-tier sponsor in Echo Fox and also has MVG at his back. Beating multiple PGR ranked players and the best player in the world tends to make you look real good to potential sponsors, so these moves weren't too surprising.





Before Echo Fox and MVG came around, he hadn't even had much of a sponsor. His local Smash Factor helped him attend a few events, but that was about it.

The PGRv2! Huge thank you to the @ThePGstats team for compiling this list, doing amazing things for the community  pic.twitter.com/dZMBk9hFz7 — DerZoid (@DerZoidSplash) January 19, 2017

With all of his notable head-to-head wins and tournament win at the ZeRo Saga, the panelists for the second iteration of the Panda Global Rankings (PGR) determined MKLeo to be the eighth best player in the world.





Though the competition has been fierce since the PGRv2 came out, MKLeo stands a chance at having his rank go up for the PGRv3 that's set to come out later this year, but that's yet to be seen.





What isn't yet to be seen, though, is how incredible of a player the 16-year old player has become. And at such a young age, it's almost scary to think of what else he could accomplish.

Image courtesy of Yahoo Esports