It started with Final Fight for arcade that got me stuck on Capcom. I loved beatem ups. I saw sf2 at my local pizza place and saw you could beat up other people. Instantly hooked. I was only about 5-6 and just mashed shit, but hey, look at me now.
I popped a quarter into a MvC1 machine at an arcade because the game had Megaman in it. That got me into the franchise and I started playing SF with a good friend of mine, namely Alpha 2/3 and 3rd Strike, along with some of the other Vs games.
I remember playing SF2 Champion Edition at the mall arcade as a kid. The intro just looked so cool to me, with the guy getting punched out and then the fast pan up the building. Just iconic. I remember not long after my friend got the SNES version and I played it as his house constantly, but it always bothered me that they got rid of that intro.
I was very little in the early 90s. Just only between the ages 2-5. I had an older cousin who had sf2 for his genesis and I would always play it when I visited. Then one day I got the sf2 animated movie on vhs. Watched the shit out of it growing up. By the time I was a little older I was reading a lot of tips and tricks magazine which had a section in the back that covered fighting game events. It was the first time I had ever heard of tournaments for sf.