I consider myself a Zangief main, but I could definitely see myself play Hawk in a tourney just because he could use the representation more than Gief. I’m a big fan of the “support your character and your character’s community” mentality. And I would LOVE to go to tournaments. Really…I’m not just saying that. But there aren’t any within 150 miles of me and my job makes it impossible to go to any that are further away.
The only feasible way I can support the “Hawk community” is by posting here and beating my friends with him.
I’m sure more people fuck with Hawk on the downlow, but never use him in tourneys because they don’t want to get bodied by his notoriously crap match ups. Not saying EVERYONE does that, but I’m sure it comes up quite often. People, in general, would prefer to take the least amount of work to win a match. Esp. in Super where Hawk could get zoned out and grounded by like 45% of the roster. I still switched back and forth between him and Sagat in Super because I had to if I wanted to not break my television in frustration.
In AE, you’ll probably see better Hawk representation because he’s a better character now. Just give it some time! And as far as going to tourneys is concerned, I will still stand by my opinion that online play is the same in terms of learning experiences. Maybe I just have better training partners or something, but I still say the only reason I’d go out of my way for a tournament is to get to know the community and get bread. If I get completely blown up in my first tournament, then I’ll quietly go back home and practice lol. If I lose with Hawk, I wasn’t mind phucking the other guy enough. It’s pretty much that simple with him lol – because anyone can pick up Hawk and luck up into a win, but on a higher level you need gimmicks to get anywhere. Not that that’s entirely bad, I’d rather out play you mentally than out play you execution wise any day, and that’s why I love Hawk.
I’ve played enough Hawk matches where I know the match ups pretty well (although I’m still learning the AE changes), so anything else is my fault.
But, with all my ranting I’ll still hold up my end of the deal and use Hawk in tournaments. Stubbornly use him.
I can only make local ones due to my transportation problems (I have a horrible car lol), so apologies for not being able to make anything elsewhere on the east coast lol. Get me a MadCatz deal and maybe
Don’t know if I can amtrak straight there, but I’ve considered it if I could get money and a friends. Considered Final RoundXV, too. That one is during my spring break.
There in lies the problem. that sounds like online talk to me. Listen. do not take this personally what I am saying, nor is it a slant to you. this is just a rant to the GENPop. that think this way and to bring to light my opinion on this, I’ll tell a story. This past January, I traveled with Wolfkrone, hollow and several of my teammates in a car to go to C-Bus Battles Gaiden. During the ride we stopped at mcdonalds, there I told the guys, “Im ready. I may not win this thing but I am ready. I dont care who it is, Jwong, flash, PR… Iam ready I am going to give it my all.” Wolfkrone was like, “Oh yea?” “I was like YES! I dont care if I gotta face Jwong / Edwardo first match. Im ready.” Fate sure has it’s own style of irony because my very first match was against Justin… On Stream. Oh my.
Going through all the emotions, I just walked up and played him. First match with T.Hawk. Did ok but lost. Went to Hakan (he had rufus) which is kind of easier match up. Lost worse then I did with T.Hawk. After the lose, I ran up to the stream table to read what was said.
From that moment I learn not to worry about who’s watching or what people say. I go out and try to get better with Hakan / T.Hawk…
Moral of the story? Do NOT give a care about what some one says about you or who you play. if you are good with a low tier character online, why would you switch from that chracter because you’re at a tournament? if you get bodied, you get bodied! Learn from it and adapt for the next tournament or match. I just started to go to tourneys last year, but know friends that went for years, like VDO. Juan and I were on the way to NEC, and he told me the realiest Shh… that I will remember for the rest of my life, “When you get your arse beat at tournaments, you will remeber that arse beating and it will make you want to get better so the next time you see that MF’er you will want to give him that same pain he gave you last time”. he was right, because at NEC Liston gave me a sever beating and I still owe him one.
as for Match ups. yes T.hawk had / has horrible match ups, however we have the power of youtube and the internet. watch videos on how to get past those match ups. Kideavu and momochi felt T.Hawk was still not good, then they ran into Kouji KOG… now ask them about T.Hawk. I talked to Ryan hart while he was in Japan over skype and he said he was amazed by how many Zangief players were leaving gief to play t.hawk. T.hawk is good, if not great it just takes a hawk player to shine at a tourney. That’s it. Grindman (i think it was him) was doing an excellent show at ECT last year, I think he switched mains, but still. T.hawk is good and its soooo rewarding to beat some one with him.
Both are quoted due to inconsistencies of argument and facts about individual…
Fact of the matter is we need more character representation about tournaments.
Synkiller. Idk why you went Hakan-Rufus Hawk-Rufus is even =/ it happens though
Its just nutty how we dont have T.Hawk representation at tournaments. As I keep stating I know other people play T.Hawk on east coast…but they just don’t go out to tournaments and I have no idea why. Im sick of this community being filled with scrubs I want to actually have a decent representation and a decent pool of players. I understand the Midwest and Central players since the popularity of super is a lot smaller but the East Coast/West Coast guys have no excuse.
Having a match streamed helps. Speaking of things. I learn a lot from my matchs that are streamed and posted later since… Its just looks kinda butt that the only videos of me playing are of me losing.
Awesome stuff, all of it. The way I see it is this: if I cared about other people, I’d have used one of those top-tier characters in Super, like Chun, Honda, Guile, or Akuma. Yeah, I’ve been trying to improve with Bison and Ryu a bit lately, but that’s in large part to keep the game fresh for me. Using one character for everything all the time causes a bit of burnout. T. Hawk is my guy, and now that Blanka is realistically beatable, there’s no good reason not to use him…unless you’re still scared of Blanka, for some reason…
I’ve been fucking wih thawk for about a month now and I hope I’m decent enough to bring him to some local tournaments now. There is still much I need to learn with him.
I have to be honest, I haven’t really been looking at the thawk forums since AE, because participation was so low in Super. Good to see Joe_Lewis being active and a lot more new people posting. I’ll definitely try to be more active in the thawk forums!
damn Joe, that Akuma matchup is always dirty. Some good reads though on baiting out teleport but you put up a good fight. But fuck some of THawks matchups….theyre just dirty.
Just caught the matches, Joe (really sucked that you cane one RIGHT AFTER I WENT TO BED!..but whatever). Nice job just bodying Yipes. Too bad about the Akuma match, but those matchups are gonna happen. That’s the risk we take playing with the Hawk. At the very least, that win over Yipes should have opened some people’s eyes to how T. Hawk means business!
Darth Arma plays at the same tournaments I do and play online A LOT. I hate it when Break Guardians have to play each other =(
That match with Yipes is exactly what I wanted as far as matchups are concerned. I played really well vs him. Yipes, Adnan and Arma were in my bracket. I wanted to avoid Adnan and Arma as much as possible and the brackets were working in my favor… Adnan and Yipes played each other and Adnan won… Arma lost really early… I ended up losing to Merkillo 2-0 (4-2) and were all close rounds so I didnt care at that point I needed Merkillo to lose so I could play him in losers semis or final and he won against Adnan so I was like “FCK!” and Arma won his matchs so it was pretty much 1+1 after that… I ended up going 3-2 so thats like tied for 32 or 64th I dunno. I showed people that T.Hawk doesn’t suck thats all that really mattered to me. People were talking so much shit in my pool matches but it comes with the territory. If I beat Arma, I would of played Adnan I think (?) its whatever though. Good day.
Majors are really exhausting though. I got home and slept for 12 hours O.o
