WickedElement 🍻 ری ٹویٹ کیا
Seeing George Ngo’s name in the article getting fourth place at that event brings back memories. He was one of the guys I met at UCLA who didn’t speak to me until I started beating him. Hahaha. We then became friends and he drove me to places to show people how strong I was.
In Alpha 2 I could beat Rolentos with Zangief, which was largely considered impossible. He drove me to an arcade to play against Martin Vega, another veteran top player in the SoCal days (another name that could be seen on the ranking board behind Tomo in that famous interview from GamePro). At the time, Martin Vega was considered one of the best Rolentos in SoCal.
We played and I can’t remember exactly any scores, but I think it was pretty 50/50. Which at the time was unheard of for Zangief against Rolento. I was definitely surprising a lot of people at that time.
And when I finally entered my first Alpha 2 tournament at SHGL, I ended up getting Third Place, losing only to my UCLA Arcade-mate that I drove there (Richard Koven was his name I *think*?), who got 2nd, and Alex Valle who won the tournament.
On the way I beat a lot of top players, including Jeff Schaeffer, and I remember though he had the same bravado he’s always had, he looked nervous to fight me as I was taking down name after name in that event. Even caught him with Gief’s Level 3 anti-air Super, which at the time was considered useless (and, honestly, still IS kind of useless).
I know it’s hard to imagine that I used to be extremely strong at fighting games these days, and I don’t blame anyone for not believing I used to be any good. There really is very little evidence of my skills from back in the day before streaming and direct feed recording and such. Hahaha. But man, I used to THROW DOWN with the best. 👊
Super Arcade !!!@SuperDojo
Just so the people know... SoCal was ALWAYS tops in the Golden Era. And here's some proof. Look at who entered the "Intermediate," aka the kiddie bracket 🤣 and who got tops in the "Elite" bracket. Here's a 1st hand story for you non-believers. Love you NorCal 😘
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