If he doesn't feel that as a wholly empty accomplishment, he must be a sociopath.
He didn't prove his ability to fight was superior. He didn't prove his mastery of martial arts was superior. He proved his ability to push his opponent over the line.
I'm not say the way he did the martial arts thing is the way to go. Personally, I wouldn't be able to pull it off because I don't think I would be able to face the other players and not feel bad about what I was doing.
But, by his definition, and by those set up by that martial arts sport, he did win, and he got the title/paper to prove it. What can you say, some people like titles/papers more than the actual process :)
Nope, his ability to fight _was_ superior. He used every advantage possible while staying within the rules of the game. That's how competitive games are played.
I have a lot more respect for something like Doug Lenat winning a 1981 Traveller (pencil & paper RPG) Trillion Credit Squadron space navy warfare competition by using an AI program to come up with a strategy that followed the rules but was totally unlike what anyone else was doing: building massive numbers of small, cheap, individually weak, disposable/suicidal ships, rather than designing a smaller traditional fleet of big, expensive, powerful capital ships.
For one thing, the strategy he came up with is not unlike the use of suicide bombers in real life conflicts. I expect something similar will apply when large numbers of small, cheap autonomous drones start being deployed. It has real-world applicability. It was also effective, I believe, in EVE Online. Plus, it was an interesting application of technology. It wasn't just "shoving".
By comparison, Ferris' shoving tactic is virtually useless outside of the context of a ring-based martial art competition. (Maybe if you got in a fight on the edge of a cliff, or on the roof of a building, or next to a pool of sharks...)
Perhaps, but only in a fleeting "I'm the reason they patched that map exploit in 4.01" sort of way." Exploiting a one-time temporary imbalance in a game system doesn't make you a lifelong great player. As an illustration, who's the more respected NBA champion, Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant?
He didn't prove his ability to fight was superior. He didn't prove his mastery of martial arts was superior. He proved his ability to push his opponent over the line.
If there were no line, he'd be crushed.