M. Bison's Contest History

Who is M. Bison?
M. Bison is the true villain of Street Fighter. Akuma and Gill might be tougher at times, but they don't touch Bison on the evil scale. Bison debuted in Street Fighter 2 as the final boss after defeating the 3 grand masters, Balrog, Vega and Sagat, and except for SF2 Turbo he was the hardest of the four by far. His fast normals, quick Psycho Crusher and jumping specials made him a challenge for the crowds gathering around the SF2 machines. A year later, he became playable in Champion Edition, and was one the reasons why CE was so popular. People finally had the thrill of playing as the big boss himself.

Bison remained one of the most popular SF characters, even after his death in 1994 by Akuma's Shungokusatsu. Bison after SF2 apparently had a taste for cheesy poofs, as his return in Street Fighter Alpha was a big one. As he was now known as Fat Bison, and the extra pounds didn't just make him look like an evil albino Fat Albert but reduced his Psycho Crusher to a Super, replacing it with a slow purple fireball, and having all of his other moves toned down and slowed. He gained some extra defense through...

Bison still appeared in every Street Fighter and crossover except for Marvel vs Capcom and Street Fighter III, but his butter buns turned him from one of Street Fighter's most popular characters to a waste of a character slot. Bison was growing into one of Street Fighter's most hated characters. In Alpha 3, he got a lot of backstory and relationships to oither characters, and a more powerful Shin Bison form with a full screen Psycho Crusher that took of 75% of the life bar, but still nobody beside those people who love to abuse boss characters picked him.

Bison, sick of all this torment and humiliation, hurled his ass to Jenny Craig, and returned in Capcom vs SNK as lean, mean nostalgic machine. Returning to his Street Fighter 2 glory days, he got his speed, Psycho Crusher and power back, as well as a new Super and his infamous "Paint the Fence" Shadow Slicer move. The once ridiculed lardass became a feared crime lord once again.

Bison also has his reasons why he's so hated by many of the Street Fighter characters. Most famous of his bad deeds is his murder of Chun-Li's father, second would be he's like the rats that follow Kenny around only with Charlie, Guile's best friend who dies in every game he's in. He's also after Ryu's evil energy, hoping to turn him into the strongest Street Fighter under his arm, through this causes trouble with his right hand man Sagat, who rebels against Bison because of this. He also kidnaps teenage girls and brainwashes them to a point they're organic robots. He also killed T. Hawk's tribe, but who cares about T. Hawk?

Bison's not just a Street Fighter icon, but an icon among gaming villains around the world. Whatever trouble he causes taunting Chun Li, trying to awake Ryu's killing intent, challenging Magneto's magnetism with his Psycho Power, teaming up with Geese in their crime jobs or striking fear against even KOS-MOS in Namco X Capcom, Bison is a force to be reckoned with.

As a final side note, the M. Bison spoken of in this review used to not be called M. Bison at all. The character we now know as Balrog used to be known as M. Bison (a tribute of sorts to Mike Tyson), but Capcom changed the character names around after Tyson got into legal trouble.

Chun-Li: You killed my father! Bison: So? I killed my father and I'm not complaing. Chun Li: My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away. A hero at a thousand paces! Bison: I'm sorry... I don't remember any of it. Chun Li: You don't remember? Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday.

(Writeup courtesy of Heroic Dr Wily)

M. Bison's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 1-1

Spring 2005 Contest - Ruin Division - 6 Seed
 * Ruin Round 1 --- Defeated (3) Albedo, 46264 [68.44%] - 21337 [31.56%]
 * Ruin Semifinal --- Lost to (7) Diablo, 39761 [47.12%] - 44627 [52.88%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 6th Place [27.44%]

Unlike most of the field in the Villains Contest, Bison managed to go out and prove that he is more than fodder in a contest setting. The reason his lone appearance was in said villain contest is because he gets lost among the massive amount of Street Fighter characters that get nominated every year. Bison could be right there with Ken or Chun-Li in strength is he were a contest regular, and could win a match or two every year given good placement.

In the Villains Contest, Bison was paired up against Albedo and expectedly beat the crap out of him in the match. Bison's next opponent was Diablo, and for while the match lived up to all of the hype surrounding it. Bison took an early lead before falling behind by over 1000 votes, and Bison put another good run into the poll before finally being put away once and for all. The loss to Diablo looks bad on paper, but one could argue that Bison has a better chance to win that match if diabloii.net doesn't link to all of Diablo's matches.

Regardless, Bison is a good mid-carder and could do well in contests if he managed to make more of them.