How awesome would it be if we saw Mike as a new Illuminati character and the “Balrog” shadow preview is actually Mike?
EDIT: Hell, at this point, I’ll guarantee they could get Tyson not only to sign off on it but to do the voice acting! The guy has a great sense of humor nowadays
Maybe he’ll have a pigeon. I’ve heard multiple people talk about how excited they are by his changes. Just show him already!
That bull tattoo is new.
If I had to guess, Balrog may return in a SF1 “Mike” outfit, possibly as an alt. Either way, cool beans.
Some people still argue that Boxer isn’t Mike. Even in the face of tweets like that.
I thought that wasn’t on an issue with America. In Japan Mike and Boxer are the same character.
Balrog being Mike actually opens up an interesting possibility: After the First World Warrior tournament, Bison approached several people with offers to join Shadowloo. Mike joined, Sagat joined after losing to Ryu, and maybe Bison contracted the Geki clan, which led him to Vega.
I always liked the idea that Bison got to Vega when he was young, making him the oldest member of the Shadaloo Kings we know of after Bison himself. The old story behind Vega is that he went psycho serial killer after witnessing his step father kill his mother when he was a kid, then there is a huge gap in his story. But we can assume he went on killing many times after that before attracting the attention of Bison. I think from a storytelling perspective, it would be really dark if this event took place when Vega was still very young (10-14) which would make Bison almost like an adoptive father to him, and as if Vega was almost raised by Bison and Shadaloo for most of his life.
But Sagat and Boxer were definitely recruited in the Alpha 1/2 era time period.
I’ve always taken for granted for some reason that Vega was Bison’s earliest recruit of the 4 kings. It makes sense for the direction of Vega’s life…and because, while running Shadaloo, recruiting a highly capable assassin would be VERY important for someone like Bison.
I think that’s a reasonable assumption. I cannot see Balrog being recruited before Vega. Honestly, Balrog’s always felt really out of place as a Shadaloo King for me. You’ve got an evil dictator with super powers, a Spanish assassin with a mask and claw, a giant man with an eyepatch…and then a boxer who looks like Mike Tyson. I dunno, he’s never really blended in well with the others.
I would prefer Mike over Balrog, not because I don’t like Balrog per se, but because I’d like to see the SF1 cast given another chance.
facepalm
Mike from Street Fighter is Mike Bison (aka Balrog Outside of Japan) from Street Fighter 2.
Although you could definitely make the case they are the same they have yet to be confirmed as the same person. Mike and Balrog is the same case as Andore and Hugo, where you have two sets of characters each modeled after one person. The original World Warriors designs were a far cry from what they turned out to be. Ryu would’ve been redesigned to resemble Kenshiro, but of course they reverted him to look closer to his original appearance in SF. I feel like they may have toyed with the idea of a new revamped boxing character, but realized that the “Tyson” design of their Boxer character from SF stood out more than the generic concept design. So like Ryu and Ken they stuck with the design, but unlike Ryu and Ken, I don’t think they intended Mike and Balrog to be the same character originally.
Here some other ones featuring the original Street Fighters.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZPfY75WkAAfTax.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZVP0OLU8AA9Um-.jpg
For some reason Birdie seems to be getting his ass kicked by Joe and Retsu. Yun and Yang look confused about Lee for some reason. Can you make out a translation for them?
O yea here’s some nice pics of some the lady wrestlers and their names, as well as fine Shadaloo cuisine prepared by Chef Bison himself! Make sure to save your Bison bucks!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYMYLKVUoAA49tN.jpg
The way the Street Fighter Wiki (obviously the best of sources amirite) phrases it like Vega grew up studying bullfighting, moved to Japan to study ninjitsu, returned to Spain as a champion cage fighter, and then his mother was killed. This interpretation confuses me a bit because you would think Vega’s stepfather would expect a master ninja to avenge his own mother, so I can see the argument against it. As far as I know, Capcom never released an official source that gives a timeline of Vega’s life, so this is all up in air. But I think Vega had a career as a matador/cage fighter before joining Shadowloo, so I don’t think Bison could have recruited him at a young age. There are still some questions I would like to know:
-Did Vega study ninjitsu before or after killing his stepfather?
-How old was Vega when his mother was killed?
-Did Vega inherit his money by being the surviving member of his stepfather’s household/family, or is his fortune self-made?
I’m liking these little drawings too. I notice that Joe’s hair is different and he got a shirt, while Lee has a flask like Chin from KoF.
Retsu has a goatee and prayer beads on his right wrist in his artwork
That would be awesome if we get to follow Mika (and Gief?) through the wrestling circuit either in story or some other mode.
If they did this there would absolutely need to be a tiger mask reference. Hell one of their concept characters before SF1 was basically tiger mask.
What tiger mask is it? Do you have a picture of it? I’m curious.
It was actually considered for one of the concept characters for SF2. The “Tiger Mask” character would eventually become what we know as Blanka today.
Then Tekken came around and masked man became King