Last weekend, the best Street Fighter players in the world came together for EVO 2013, the world fighting game championships. But, do they know these 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter? Everyone's favorite fighting game franchise has several obscure facts that have shaped what the series is today. Learning these 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter may not win you any tournaments, but it will certainly level up your fan cred.

  • Who Is Sheng Long?

    Ryu’s famous Sheng Long reference in his win quote from Street Fighter II is actually a mis-translation of Shoryuken or Dragon Punch. The quote should have been something like, “you must be able to withstand my dragon punch before you have a chance against me.” Talk about an obscure Street Fighter fact!
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  • THE BAZ!

    Numerous character concepts were made but never used for Street Fighter II. Two of these concepts include a fat clown, which was later repurposed into Rufus in Street Fighter IV, and Zubaz, a man with a leather whip and ripped shirt which was later used as inspiration for The Baz in Divekick.
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  • Under Pressure

    A version of Street Fighter was made using pressure sensitive push buttons. Instead of six buttons, you simply had two punch and kick panels. The strength of your attack was determined by how hard you punched the panel.

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  • Feel the Rainbow

    Many Street Fighter ideas were borrowed from hackers who made their own illegal versions of Street Fighter II. For example, Street Fighter II Rainbow Edition was one of the most popular hacked versions of the game, and could be found in arcades everywhere. This was the game that popularized things such as air-fireballs.

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  • Street Fighter III: Movie Edition?

    Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game actually started as the original Street Fighter III project, at least, according to the development team. The team was going to totally revamp the series including a new combo system, Mortal Kombat like digitized graphics, and even the addition of Sheng Long, based off the famous mistranslation of Ryu’s win quote. Supposedly, this was a result of a communication error and the dev team was later told they were creating a spin-off instead.
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  • A Bug, Not A Feature

    Combos actually originated as a bug. The original conception of Street Fighter and Street Fighter II was for the game to act a bit more like Rock-Paper-Scissors, or for that matter, a real fight. Every hit could be blocked, and whether or not a move hit would be determined by its speed, range, and what the opponent did. The dev team knew that certain moves could be chained together but thought that the skill required to do so was far out of the common gamer’s hands. They were very wrong.

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  • Not That Kind of Cheap Trick

    This entry in our list of 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter is a funny one. Ken’s theme song was inspired by Cheap Trick’s song, Mighty Wings. Yes, that Mighty Wings. From the Top Gun soundtrack. Seriously, just give them a listen back to back and get freaked out. Ken, you can be my wingman any day.

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  • Bros 4 Life

    Ken and Ryu are the only two characters to have shown up in every Street Fighter title including the original. Yes, this also counts EX titles, Alpha titles, and even spinoffs like Super Puzzle Fighter. The only time that Ryu ever showed up without his buddy Ken at his side was in the Marvel VS. series.

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  • The Name Game

    A couple of the boss characters in Street Fighter II have had their names switched around from the Japanese version. Balrog, the boxer, was originally known as M. Bison, with the M standing for Mike. Mike Bison. Get it? Yes, Balrog is supposed to be a parody of Mike Tyson, but due to fear of legal issues in America, they decided to change his name. The original name of American Vega was Balrog and the original name of American M. Bison was Vega, so instead of changing the names entirely, Capcom simply decided to switch them around because Vega sounded Spanish, Balrog sounded tough, and the M in M. Bison could be read as “master.” To avoid confusion, the pro community just calls them Boxer, Claw, and Dictator.

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  • Street Final Fight Fighter II?

    Final Fight was originally meant to be the true sequel to Street Fighter, but Capcom thought its side scrolling stages and beat em up format were too different from the original 1v1 round based fighting format of the original game. Instead, they billed it as a spinoff series, but since both series were so closely related, characters have wandered back and forth between the two since its inception. That’s why you so often see Guy, Cody, and even Haggar as playable characters or background characters in Street Fighter games. It’s also why Hugo and Poison are playable characters as well. And there you have it! Our list of 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Street Fighter.

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