LU|Alex Valle has a handful of nicknames at this point, but the title of “Mr. Street Fighter” should tell you just how prominent a figure he’s been in the American (and global) competitive Street Fighter scene.
Valle has many historic wins and matches on his resume, and has for a long while now. The majority of his highlights happened a bit closer to the days of Street Fighter Alpha, but in 2015 he reminded the entire community why his name will forever be in the Street Fighter hall of fame. It just so happens that the talented Papa Lobster has a whole video covering this particular match, and you can see it below.
Valle played Ryu for most of Street Fighter 4’s lifespan, and I know this because I got blown up by this Ryu many times at Wednesday Night Fights in the early 2010’s. When SF5 received its final “Ultra” update, Mr. Street Fighter made the interesting choice to switch over to the big-bodied Hugo.
Grapplers aren’t known for being the strongest archetypes, and Hugo’s extreme size makes him both relatively slow and an easier target in USF4. When Valle switched his main I found it was much easier to defeat him, in no small part because I played a zoning character (Gouken) who could win entire rounds without Hugo ever getting close enough to attempt a grab.
With this in mind, we zip to Evo 2015 (Street Fighter 4’s last hurrah) where Valle met RB|Bonchan in the early brackets. Bonchan was easily the best Sagat player on the planet, and Sagat competed with Gouken in terms of being Hugo’s absolute worst match up.
As the pair sat down to get ready at the stream station, many figured Valle would navigate to his old main, Ryu, instead of all but throwing away his Evo life against last year’s runner up (Bonchan placed second in 2014 and went on to actually win Evo in 2019) in a terrible match up.
To most everyone’s surprise, he picked Hugo. As you may have figured, that’s not where the surprises end, but you’ll have to watch Papa Lobster’s wonderful recap in the full video below to hear exactly how things played out.