Does anyone have any footage of this tomo guy playing against people? From the sounds of it, he was quite the beast… and he’s pretty much the only old-school guy I haven’t seen play.
Read the thread mate. Hopefully Jeff is going to get some casual footage of him and Tomo in action, but tragicaly, it seems that peak era Tomo (and that whole golden era) was never cought on film. Weve all missed out there 
Crayfish.
Dug out this thread I saved from 2001 (before the big crash) all abt golden era SF2, esp HF. Lots of big names from the past mentioned here, ome good strats too 
Crayfish.
This part being of special interest:
Posted by jchensor on 04:20:2001 06:23 PM:
A note on the players listed in that magazine interview of Tomo:
Tomo Ohira(guy in the pic) - Tomo was THE original SF champ. He was simply ahead
of everyone else in terms of SF. I saw him in a tourney, one time, and he DPes
100% of a Chun Li’s Crouch Roundhouses. If she didn’t do it, though, he didn’t
DP. Basically, he never missed it. Granted, the game was slow as molasses, but
back then, that was amazing. He also played in a tourney one time and decided to
fight his next opponent using ONLY the Short button for Guile. Not only did he
win, but he did so soundly.
Jeff Schaefer - L.A.'s worst nightmare. Old school great, and one of the
cockiest players ever. Probably one of the best Turtlers around, when it was
called for. Easily one of the greatest players of all time. He played all the
way up to Alpha 3. He was the first person to really abuse X-Dhalsim, which
prompted the huge huge huge X-Dhalsim influx at SHGL.
Frank Kwang - Went to UCLA for a while, and I used to play him there on Super
Turbo. Man, that guy was like a machine. Seemed like everything he did was so
precise. Most notable skill: in Super Turbo, with Ryu, if Guile missed a
Crouching Forward near Ryu, he would sweep it back 100% of the time on reaction
(it seemed like) and never missed.
Kuni Fenada - Legendary Zangief player. I heard if you missed a sweep, he would
ALWAYS SPD you afterwards during your delay.
Mike Watson - We all know Mike. He’s always been good at fighting games.
George Ngo - Another classic great at the old school games. He, too, went to
UCLA and was one of the biggest sources of competition for me.
Martin Vega - I still see him at SHGL a lot. Plays with Mike Watson most of the
time. Still a really solid player.
Aric Tetley - Poor Aric… doomed to have his name mis-spelled for the rest of
his life… If it isn’t Eric Tetley, it’s Aric Tefley. I used to play Aric
in Hyper Fighting during High School EVERY DAY during one summer. He used to
school me with his Sagat. Things have not changed. Currently, he is my
co-worker, close friend, and greatest source of high quality SF comp. If you
noticed, he’s the one who won the Guilty Gear X tourney and the Hyper Fighting
tourney at UCLA.
I’ll just summarize some of the others I know… Roger Chung was one of the
original 4 terrors of World Warrior. He, too, went to UCLA, but moved to Taiwan
(I think) before I actually got there. After that, I’m not really sure what
happened to him. Roger Cejavo was another person that played Hyper Fighting with
Aric and I. We used to play EVERY day during one summer. Man… James Romedy:
one of the best players from San Diego. Played all the way until Alpha 3. His
X-Dhalsim was what inspired Jeff Schaefer to pick up X-Dhalsim in Alpha 3. Norm
Do was another player who eventually went to UCLA, and provided me with good
Alpha 3 competition.
Man, everytime I read that list of players, it’s always so nostalgic for me… I
only knew most of these people late in my SF career, as I was never really a
part of the SF scene until Alpha 2.
I once saw someone in my high school reading that very magazine. I saw them
looking at the Tomo interview and I walked up to them and said I knew a lot of
those people. They laughed at me and thought I was a big liar. LOL. I guess you
can’t really blame them…
- James
Wow I cant beleave I remember that OLD ASS THREAD! Ahh the good ol days.
I’m not sure if some of you saw this, but this thread has a plethora of old school stories.
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1427&highlight=school
Gawd…that old Fei of mine…the only reason I won so much is because nobody really knew how to fight against him. I took SO many chances and risks back then. I think now I am a bit more calculating. When I see those old vids I say to myself “Damn, talk about NOOBISH!” because of some of the bs I would go for.
As for HF I mainly stuck with Ryu, Ken and Guile. That was it. But even back then I was good, not great. There were so many shoto and Guile players that it was just luck of the draw. I couldn’t set myself apart from the rest of the players playing back then.
Once SSF came out I started all over and began with Ryu. I didn’t take interest in the new challengers at all. Finally one day there was this guy who I would always play in SF2 CE…his name was Pete(local player) who chose Fei Long vs my Guile in SSF. Of course I was kinda cocky and thought I would wipe him out EASY but he had me cornered. I couldn’t breathe. I still remember the first time seeing that 3 hit rekka sequence hitting me. My jaw DROPPED! I beat him but he started my fascination with Fei. I know good and well he is a mid/low tier fighter but that’s what I love about him. I love fighting an uphill battle.
But what sucked was the fact that the SF2 scene was dying with each passing day. Once players saw that SSF was “the same old formula” they quit playing. They moved over to MK3 and KI. I bit the bullet and stayed true to SF and just kept at it…til I became known for using Fei in my area. It really threw alot of players for a loop. They just couldn’t believe the shit I was doing with him haha!
Then of course when ST came out it was too little too late at my local arcade(The Video Wizard Game Room)…there was a very very small following for it. Luckily for me there was still good comp at the University of Houston where I would skip school just to go and hang out at the campus and play against the students. These guys were great players…many of them were Viet too. When they would lose to a short hisp guy who used an oddball fighter they would get really mad. Almost got into fights too but I kept it cool. Within months there were copy cats left and right trying to pick up on Fei Long.
The last SF game that I really put my time into was 2nd Impact. That was the last time our crew ever really made it a point to get together to play. It was a golden time when all that mattered was the rush of a great match. That is just so hard to find now.
So in a way I was more of a limbo SF2 player back in the day. I was around 15 when SF2 hit the scene and my comp was limited to weekends only. We would always go to Super Track(local go kart track and arcade). There we would go and learn all the newest stuff that the pros would use. And there were indeed alot of great players…all cocky. I just got good too late in the game for it to matter since I didn’t have a car to travel from one game room to the next. The only highlights of my days would be going to a new mall and checking out their SF2 machine to see who was there. There were only a handful of guys who could beat me at CE and HF, but these guys would only play “clean” (no throws). So in a sense we were all naive when it came to mindgames involving throws. It wasn’t until the late 90’s when our group decided to play all out against one another that our game actually evolved.
I guess I am just stuck between old and new school play styles.:lol:
Since then there just hasn’t been a game that has excited me. SF2 really captured me because I was a SF1 junkie! I would go EVERY DAY to go and play SF1 just to see if I could get to Adon and Sagat. Back then movies like Bloodsport and Kickboxer gave us glimpses of the Thai sport of kickboxing…seeing this in a game was a real treat! I would take my little brother in a stroller up to the gameroom with me. I would beg neighbors for quarters and lie…saying stuff like “our phone got disconnected and I need some money to make some phone calls” or “to buy my kid brother some formula”
Oh God, the shit I would do just to play SF2:looney:
wow. surprised this thread is still active… how you doin graham. long time no see bro. stay away from WOW, momma says its the devil anyways. the good old days are gone, all rivalries were awesome and the main reason there are no hot rivalries anymore is because everyone is friendly now. haha, stupid valle and choi becoming lovers ruined it for norcal vs socal… j/k. anyways, good to see the old man posting, if you ever see matt taylor tell him i <3 him and imma sock him in the nose. thanks
watts
sup man, lol yeah if i saw matt ill sock him too. Yeah too many friendly people
that old school rivalry shit made us all get so good cause we all wanted to win.
Graham
I agree. We need to decrease the peace. 
I too am one of the people who have this entire tournmant on tape and I recommend it. It was hella classic. It had the imfamous “Press some buttons Cole!” and all that other crazy shit.
When Graham said they gave Valle some crazy shit what they did is try to do a little “East meets West.” After Daigo won they gave Daigo an American blazer jacket and they gave Valle a Japanese gi looking thing. And Daigo won these cheesy looking Ryu trophy.
Anyway that was all good shit and I wouldn’t say Daigo was sandbagging at first, it only seemed that way judging on the way he won the last games one after the other. Makes you say “well why didn’t he just do that to begin with?” But thanks to nohoho’s translation of Daigo’s interview we get an actual good reason why instead of just saying “sandbagging.”
Also I agree that some of the best matches were after the main event. Daigo wasn’t just whipping people with Guy, it was nasty, nasty stuff. My favorite moment on that tape is when Daigo busts this 18 or something hit combo with Guy.
It goes like this: Daigo had been doing like this 12-hitter on people for a minute now. It started with Guy’s level 3 rush super, and he kept it going with lp, mp, hp, etc. strings. He got about 12 hits out of it each time. The first time he did it ppl were like “wow,” then he was doing it so much ppl got used to it.
THEN, like right at the beginning of a match against Valle’s Rolento he busts the level 3 rush super with Guy, goes for the 12 hits, and just keeps it going all the way up to 17 or 18 hits - and the crowd is stunned. You can clearly hear someone in the back yelling “Fuck! Fuck!” like someone just shot him in the gut and he was screaming in pain or something, lol.
Even crazier? Valle came back and WON that round.
Wow, I need to go through this! Maybe today.
On that Valle Rolento match it is CLEAR Daigo gave that round. Did you ever see Daigo even TRY the aa super or mess up even CLOSE to as badly as doing a lvl3 aa super from full screen. I have to watch it again but I recall it being painful watching Valle knowing Daigo was just waiting for him to win the round. It sure seemed like he busted the lvl3 to make Valle come and take it with less fear. Daigo just stopped all aggression very abruptly and wasted his whole meter…on accident? Really? lol
Apoc.
I have transfered the SFA3 Nationals and the SF2:HF TOMO tape to DVD. SaBrE should have it in the next day or two and he will be creating vids out of it.
AAPOC!!! How you doing bro! You better be at EVO next year and ready for some ST, HF, A3!
nice! can’t wait to see that chit. thx!!!
I watched the SF2:HF Tomo tape again and there is actulay some rather good stuff in there. A few of the strats I have actualy put into use on ST/HF.
I hope that SaBrE will have the DVD coded ASAP.
that shit is going to be great, good looking out.
If anyone is on the fence about this, I also recommend it. I purchased it from the same website Crayfish linked; it was shipped promptly. Aside from the book, the DVD features a single elim ST tournament featuring many of Japan’s best players, some 30+ casual ST matches AS WELL as a similar number of AE matches. Only downside? Lot of scratch for the whole package–figure around $90 to the States.
Crayfish: Do you know who the Honda player is in the tournament?
Im planing on buying this next month as well. Should be cool.
Honda player = Kusumondo. There are some sample movies, songs and scans here. (random gripe: I guess this DVD would have never existed without Daigo co-producing it, but OTOH I have a feeling he preempted superior Ryu players like ShootingD, Inoki and/or Gotoh)
Thanks :wgrin: I always like to know who I’m watching. Is that right–Daigo co-produced the DVD? I suppose I could have read between the lines given the interview, and random product placement–‘BEAST DIAGO.’ I wish I was truly able to read what’s going on 
As far as the players selected (Daigo notwithstanding), just one of those ‘what you gonna do’ things. I’m sure one could come up with arguments as to why X should have been there instead of Y… If I had my way, jms of USA would be select!