In light of the SFAE finals here at iSeries and the posts that have been floating around the internet from people who are not at the event, this is the story of what has gone down at i47 (UK) San Fran qualifiers for Street Fighter AE.
Prior to the tournament Western Wolves had their players going to the event hoping for the chance to go to San Fran to compete in the prestigious Street Fighter 25th anniversary tournament. These guys were also part of Team Mad Catz.
The competition was going to be hype enough with Evil Geniuses sending over Japanese pro Momochi (who did very well), however Mad Catz decided to send Mago over from Japan too – Mago also being Team Mad Catz. They had requested that Ryan guide both Momochi and Mago to the event and make sure everything was good for them. Ryan met Momochi at the airport, travelled with him to the event and of course did the similar with Mago, sacrificing his training time to take care and arrange everything. Mago missed his initial fight, which meant that Ryan had to also take care of everything via phone for the next entire day whilst playing in his tournament games (other games for San Fran which no one would be able to concentrate fully on if they were preoccupied with something else – in this case, ensuring Mago was able to get to the event – answering every call, whilst still ensuring he could help Momochi who also could not speak English). He ensured they were comfortable – as Mad Catz had asked even when it cost him time practising and his tournament focus at iSeries. He went out of his way to help.
In the winner’s bracket final, Ryan was super close to his trip to San Fran rep’ing the UK, but narrowly lost to Momochi and therefore was pushed into the loser’s bracket. In this bracket, he would then fight fellow team member all the way from Japan, playing in this tournament. The fight was incredibly close but Ryan narrowly missed out.
You would be angry too – would you not? To be competing in your home country for SF qualifiers of perhaps the biggest Street Fighter tournament ever, to loose to someone that your team decided to send over from another country after they messed up their own qualifiers? Whether this was an open tournament or UK based tournament (it was open btw!), it can still hurt when you feel cheated out of something.
Credit to Mago for winning of course, and to Capcom and Mad Catz for the incredible event, but yes Ryan has been suspended for a heated tweet that he made out of incredible frustration both out of losing and after everything he did for Mad Catz, to help Mago and Momochi to have an enjoyable event.
The tweet was on twitter for less than 2 minutes. Of course, Western Wolves had to do something, but all you guys out there needed to hear the full story…. Ryan did so so much for Mad Catz and the japanese guys… everyone has emotion.
Ryan knows he lost fair and square but was upset about how everything had turned out, Ryan knows he shouldn’t have tweeted what he did and removed it almost immediately but emotions run high in high profile tournaments – this was one of them.
