When someone brings up a boxer in Street Fighter, the uncouth and unclassy Balrog inevitably comes to mind, but Capcom also designed an antithesis character to Rog in the form of the highly-refined and well mannered ultimate gentleman: Dudley.
The much more proper pugilist is easily one of the coolest and most charismatic characters in all of Street Fighter and yet has only popped up as playable in two main entries: Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter 4. Let’s take a look back at the character’s history and speculate how he might look if he joined SF6 as DLC as we recap Dudley’s full story leading up to Street Fighter 6.
In his two appearances, Dudley’s story threads are somewhat light even a little arbitrary, but they do showcase his personality which is so defined by convictions and admirable qualities that it’s hard to be anything but charmed by him.
Just like the soil in his flourishing rose gardens, Dudley’s design is a perfect foundation for plenty more appearances and arcs, and developers would do well to bring him back into the fold as soon as possible as his speedy and combo-filled fighting style is as fun to watch as it is to play.
Born to a high class English family with an extremely successful (at least at the time) father, Dudley grew up with a matter of fact onus to live up to ridiculously high standards. When his father unfortunately lost his fortune around the time Dudley was entering college, he got a real shot at proving his own worth outside of his father’s shadow.
Dudley’s affinity for boxing would quickly pay off as he shot up through the ranks and became the English champion, garnering back his family’s lost estate piece by piece until all but one item was back in the family’s possession.
This item was non other than Dudley’s father’s prized red Jaguar, a car Street Fighter 3 fans will know well at this point.
Dudley is actually unable to find the antique vehicle during the course of Street Fighter 4, and really doesn’t accomplish much save for having an initial interaction with his boxing counterpart, Balrog, who is different from Dudley in just about every way save for the fact that they both don boxing gloves (all the damn time).
Balrog is actually the only character (at least up until this point) that gets Dudley to break from his gentlemanly ways and hurl an insult at. Said insult isn’t the worst (Dudley calls him “not much of a boxer” in their rival scene interaction) but this is a notable departure from the character’s constant cordiality.
Dudley actually leans into this a bit more in Third Strike when he lobs a few more insults at foes, which kind of sets up a potential arc for him should Capcom bring him back in Street Fighter 6 as DLC.
There’s a good bit more to the story and we cover an SF6 fantasy story line in the full video below. Give it a watch, drop a like and a comment to help with the old YouTube algorithm, and let us know how much you’d like to see Dudley make a Street Fighter comeback.