Talent exists though. Like, it's literally an undeniable fact. Yeah, hard work + talent is necessary in any form of competition but that's such an obvious point it's not worth debating.
But you often get two guys who put it more or less the same amount of work in anything (sports, competition, etc...), and have similar experience, and one of them will often have the other's number. In this case, it's no excuse. One guy might be marginally more talented.
Now talent when it comes to fighting games is somewhat of an abstract term and a bit vague, therefore hard to define. For instance, if you look at sports, it's really easy to see that Lionel Messi is just much more talented at football/soccer than pretty much any other player. You can put in all the hard work you want, you still won't be able to change direction as effortlessly as he does, or develop his first touch, and dribbling ability (of course, he's worked exceptionally hard, but that's a given otherwise he wouldn't be where he's at). Likewise, you look at Steph Curry or Kevin Durant and they've put in insane hours in the gym and have literally taken millions and millions of jump shots, and endured some frankly inhuman training regimens. But, your average 12 year old basketball player can practice 24 hours a day and they'll never develop Steph Curry's jumper.
Yeah, it's harder to pin point talent in fighting game as so much of the outcome depends on match-up knowledge (therefore time put in the lab), execution (which can be sharpened by simply practicing), experience, etc... And yet, we're kidding ourselves if we don't think talent has a lot to do with the ability to quickly pick up a game. Things like instincts, decision making, reactions and timing are all more or less talent related when it comes to fighting games. Yeah, you can improve them through practice but there will always be a ceiling.
Case in point: Sonic Fox won the day 0 MKX tournament, in which everyone had literally the same amount of time practicing the game. Over a year later, he's still winning. I doubt that fatal 8 win in April 2015 was due to his hard work in the two days he had with the game.
If you're seriously claiming that talent is just some "excuse," then you're kinda saying that you, Youphemism, can be as good as Daigo if you just put in the time and effort. Read that out loud, note how ridiculous it sounds, and well, yeah...
