Reminisce about the early EVO's ... you know BATTLE OF THE BAYs B4...b5...b3?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
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Sup guys I know we have a threat around here that discusses how it was back in the sf2 days. But Im wondering (where that thread is for 1) what the first evo style tournament was like?

Just so you know Im asking this because I plan on writing a story that takes some characters back to one of the early big tourneys.
Anyone that has found memories of their first trip to an evo like tournament is more than welcome to share. Personally I plan on writing this story to covey what going to evo2k4 was like for me.

Now I know some of you might wonder if its even worth it to share your memories with me so I can just hijack them and put them in a short story… but if your asking that question all I can say is read my story “The Best Fighter” and tell me if I should continue with the saga of these guys. (Story can be found at http://obot64.com/literature)

Comments, Questions? Ect?

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B4 was great. They were having the USA vs Japan tourney later that year and JSF would pay for the top 3 players. Valle and Choi were automatically on the team so #3 was up for grabs. Watson took 1st place in ST and assured himself a spot on the team. Eddie LEe took 4th in A3, 4th in 3S, and 5th in MvC2 and Hsien got 2nd in 3S to round off the team. (Ricky ortiz and Seth killian were also on the team but not based on their b4 performance). Some of the best matches were Eddie Lee vs Mike Watson in A3 (draw game 1st round) and Eddie Lee vs Duc do in MvC2 (which went the complete 5 games). Arturo and Eddie placed 1st and 2nd respectively at the midwest championships for mvc2, beating out heavyweight alex valle so watching Duc against eddie was a real treat.

B5. Everyone was watching Justin. Justin beat out ricky ortiz at ECC, Alex valle at Midwest and now he was trying to own all the shit talkers saying that he wasn’t the real thing. And he proved it. Magneto rushdown along with Storm/sentinel DHC owned everybody up. Justin vs Duc in finals was what everyone wanted and that’s what everyone got.

Evo2k2: Probably the worst tourney of em all. Time constraints brought MvC2 to 1 game. But the best part was watching the japanese own up USA in CvS2. Ken (a japanese exchange student), beat out BAS with his uber sick Yun. Japan’s level in CvS2 was so much higher than USA at this point. Of course no one could forget Justin losing perfect to Tokido in 3S exhibition. Probably the 1st time people saw the power of Aegis. He also finished off nicely by losing perfect to Mester’s Genei Jin Yun.

Evo 2k3: Daigo’s tournament. He won GGXX, ST and got 2nd place in 3S and CvS2. Absolutely crazy. I liked watching CvS2 Ino rush people down with his k-groove. That guy has no fear. This was the point where MvC2 began it’s decline. Oh and Mago vs Justin in CvS2 was hilarious.

Evo2k4: Kuni in ST was great to watch. Justin brought up his game in 3S, upsetting Raoh. MvC2? Blah. USA CvS2 keeps on improving and it showed in this tourney with Ricky and Choi getting 2nd and 3rd. Oh and Daigo full parry. Nuff said.

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Was thair a b3? and what year was b4 in?
does some math b5 was in 2001 and b4 was in 2000 right?

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B4 was my first tourny. I remember a friend told me we should go to this tourny in Folsom, thinking it was some small thing. Little did we know what impact it would have once we got there. My best memory of that event, would be playing casuals before the tourny began and beating a team of Duc/Arturo, and someone coming over to me afterwords and telling me I beat both Westcoasts and Eastcoasts best. That was cool…

As for B5… I didnt really like the pool qualifiers, but it was fun. I won my first match using Kobun, then got peaced by Rat.

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Oh, wow Impulsze can you share more about your experance?
I think i’ll have the chracters in my story go through something similar.

Who were the big names back then? (since i’m gonna deal with an actual event i guess i should try to make this historicly accurate)

How many days did the event last?

And what games were offered?

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b4: Sfa3 (john choi), sfa2 (alex valle), 3rd strike (alex valle), MvC2 (duc do), ST (Mike watson)
b5: MvC2 (justin wong), CvS1 (Chikyuu sodom), Sfa3 (Bas), ST (Jason cole)
Evo2k2: MvC2 (Justin wong), CvS2 (Tokido), ST (Jason cole)
evo2k3: MvC2 (Justin wong), Cvs2 (Ino), ST (Daigo), 3rd strike (KO), GGXX (Daigo), TTT, T4, SC2, Vf4
Evo2k4: MvC2 (Justin wong), CvS2 (Kindevu), ST(Daigo), 3rd strike (KO), GGXX (daigo), TTT, T4, Sc2, Vf4

I forget all the 3-D fighting game winners.

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I’m pretty sure Tokido didn’t perfect Wong at the 2K2 3rd Strike exhibition.

Not to mention Wong getting the first win using super-turtle Chun-Li.

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I think he perfected the shit out of him…did he double perfect him?

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I think it was Mester and Ohnuki that perfected Wong. I have the DVD, I’ll look in a min.

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I got one sent unblockable away from taking justins money in marvel, but fucked it up and got peaced out after knowing i screwed the unblockable up ;-;

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Ooops. My bad. You guys were right. Ohnuki and Mester perfected Wong. But Tokido’s match with him was the most entertaining I found.

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b5 was my favorite tourney cuz i won the mvc1 invitational 32 man tourney, owning everyone in cali for free!!! hehe :stuck_out_tongue:

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We should archive this somewhere. But in 1996 E3 was held in Nor Cal I do believe and Julien Beasely made some comment about how with everyone coming and nickel city only charging nickels for their games there should be a big tournament. Thus was born B3 - sort of a play on words of E3. So then someone had to come up with what B3 stood for and I forget who…maybe cannons, came up with Battle By the Bay.

B3 was the biggest Alpha 2 tournament at the time - drawing 64 players from all over the world - Kuwait, Canada, USA, etc. Alex Valle got 1st, John Choi got 2nd, Jason Nelson got 3rd, Jeff Schaefer got 4th, Julien Beasley got 5th and I really don’t remember anything after that.

For my information check out this link as there is plenty of details documented:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+b3+results

I hella don’t remember the exact timeline but sometime after that - MIT was a hotbed for A2 competition and they held an Alpha 2 tournament also. Since B3 was such a huge success they decided to go with that theme and had B2 - Boston Brawl!! John Choi got 1st, David Sirlin got 2nd and I think Julien Beasely got 3rd but I could be wrong.

For my information check out this link as there is plenty of details documented:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+b2+results

Look for some post by Choi as I know he wrote a long and really good post.

Things sorta died down regarding tournaments when Tragic stepped up and had Tragic The Gathering which can be found here:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+derek+tragic+gathering

I THINK I wrote something for part 1 but maybe not, fuck that was a long time ago.

There was some other really important things that happened along the same time. ECC3 & ECC4 especially but also the midwest SJG tournaments that were being run around that time.

Try some of these:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+derek+ecc3

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+derek+ecc4

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+ecc2k+results

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+sf2k

So after that Peter Kang steps into the picture talking to us about wanting to do a Street Fighter documentary called Bang The Machine.

Most of that has been documented but here is something you may or may not know about:

http://www.shoryuken.com/b4/

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=alt.games.sf2+b4+results

Look for the log by Sabin as I remember it being a good read also.

This should hopefully help.

Derek Daniels

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yea sabin’s b4 log made me fall in love with the man named arturo sanchez <3

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Thx Omni!

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Yeah I still remember at B3 where Alex barely beat choi in the final match with a tiger uppercut when choi just activated his Custom Combo.

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jwong didn’t get perfect by tokido in 2k2. he almost got perfected in first round though…