Who threw that punch? Capcom puts 25-year-old ‘Street Fighter II’ mystery to rest

By Brad Jones May 27, 2016

street fighter 2 characters mystery ii intro — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Street Fighter remains a major brand nearly 30 years after it first appeared on the video game scene, and is certainly one of the most popular fighting game franchises of all time. Newcomers might point to Street Fighter IV as its best installment, whereas hardcore fans often favor Street Fighter III — but it’s difficult to deny that Street Fighter II saw the series hit its peak in terms of mainstream popularity.

Now, Capcom has answered a burning question prompted by the intro video to 1991’s The World Warrior — who are those two guys fighting in the street?

Street Fighter II greets players with a short animated scene where a blonde-haired man takes out another combatant with one punch in front of a baying crowd at the foot of a skyscraper. These two fighters were not on the game’s roster, leading many players to wonder who they were, and what they were doing on its title screen.

On Thursday, links to profile pages for these two mysterious pugilists were posted on the Street Fighter subreddit. According to the game’s developer, the man throwing the punch is named Scott, and the strike’s unfortunate recipient is called Max.

Previously, one popular theory suggested that the fighters were actually Joe and Mike from the original Street Fighter.

It’s worth noting that, despite the fact that new artwork has been created for these character profiles, Scott and Max are unlikely to be added into Street Fighter V as new fighters. The Japanese version of the game’s website features similar pages for all manner of minor characters littered throughout the franchise’s long history.

However, given the tendency for video game developers to encourage the consumer’s appetite for nostalgia, we might see Scott and Max represented in the game some other way. Perhaps character skins for Ken and Balrog could allow Max to finally get a measure of revenge.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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