More than 188,000 viewers tuned in to watch Mortal Kombat X live at the Evo World Championships on Sunday.

This peak ranked MKX third among Evo broadcast finals, beating Marvel vs Capcom 3 by roughly 20,000 viewers, and trailing only Super Smash Bros. Melee and Evo darling Ultimate Street Fighter IV. Both top finals crossed the 200,000 viewer mark, with USFIV peaking at over 228k on the official stream. This year was pegged to be the celebratory swansong for SFIV as Capcom's primary fighter, with Street Fighter V coming in 2016. Guilty Gear Xrd trailed at around 121,000 viewers.

This year's performance clearly confirmed what many fans already knew: Mortal Kombat is at home on the competitive world stage!

In truth, Mortal Kombat had already established its credentials as a tournament brand over the course of three years on the Evo bill.

It began in 2011 -- rewriting the script on the competitive viability of the series with the release of Mortal Kombat. The franchise reboot combined iconic identity of the original three games with a rethink of their basic gameplay mechanics. The year that came next was arguably the biggest in the games' competitive lifecycle, helped by an Evo seeding series that incorporated top North American tournaments into a yearlong tour. The 2012 Evo Championship was the culmination of a 6 month narrative that gave rise to top players -- runner-up REO, CD Jr, Ketchup and Mustard -- whose status warranted a documentary featurette series released in 2013.

The establishment of these player identities was important in helping sites like Mortal Kombat Online convey the intrigue of the scene in an accessible manner -- a factor all too often overlooked by the insular culture.

Growth came naturally and the series sustained as all good fighters should -- making it all the more shocking when Mortal Kombat was omitted from the Evo Championship line-up in 2014 [full story].

The rise of another NetherRealm Studios fighter - Injustice: Gods Among Us - was perhaps over estimated as a replacement, while Mortal Kombat was simultaneously under estimated as a continued force. Mortal Kombat Online pitched in prizes to support an unofficial 2014 side tournament. The event attracted the tournament faithful and marked a coming out for dominant 2015 player & winner Sonic Fox. The side event went on to be the most watched MK2011 Evo final on YouTube with a flood of 260,000 views [reported by EventHubs]. At the time of this writing, the unofficial 2014 final has over 570,.000 views.

The series returned to its rightful place with the April release of Mortal Kombat X and the announcement of the 2015 Evo line-up. It was a no brainer. And while top players were pragmatic about MK's omission in 2014, the continued support of fans and the audience shows this is a series that demands attention, and deserves a place at the biggest event on the eSports calendar as much as perennial favourites.

Speaking to Mortal Kombat Online after the Evo announcement, Brant "Pig of the Hut" McCaskill said, "I also felt the EVO side tournament - that went off extremely successfully - was a big wake up that when MKX drops it'll be bigger than we all anticipated."

With hundreds of participants and many tens of thousands watching live - it was very big.