John Choi (left) faces off against Ricky Ortiz at Devastation (photo by Kara Leung)

Last week, Shoryuken.com man on the street Adam “Keits” Heart caught up with once and future Street Fighter legend John Choi to ask him about all things Street Fighter…

Adam: Today I have with me Mr. John Choi.  I believe you are the only man to ever win two Evolution tournaments in the same year.  Is that true?

John: That’s actually not true. Daigo actually won two games one year, but it wasn’t two Street Fighter’s.  It was one Street Fighter and I believe Guilty Gear.  I guess if you consider two Street Fighter tournaments, I’d be the only one.

Adam: So why don’t you tell everybody a little about yourself?

John: Well, I come from San Jose, California; it’s in the San Francisco bay area.  I work in the software industry as an operations manager for Synopsys.  I’ve been in the software industry for over 10 years since I live in the valley.  I’m also a full-time grad student.  My final semester will be finishing up in October.   Pretty much Street Fighter has been my hobby for many, many years and I’m still at it.

Adam: Do you have any real life obligations like family or kids to pull any time away from your hobby?

John: There’s definitely life obligations.  I don’t have any kids or a wife, but full time work and school takes up most of my time.  I pretty much go to work from 9-5 and my class is from 6-10 PM a couple of week nights, then Saturday from 9-1.  So I pretty much work all day and go to school all evenings and then there’s homework, so it takes up a lot of time.

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Alex Valle (left) and Peter Rosas show off their tickets after winning the Super Battle Opera qualifer at Dejin Arcade. (photo by Kara Leung)

In the weeks leading up to EVO, we’ll be running a series of interviews with the players to watch in the Street Fighter 4 tournament.  In our first interview, frequent Shoryuken.com blogger Adam “Keits” Heart catches up with Street Fighter legend Alex Valle.

(transcript of audio interview follows…)

Adam:   Alright, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. I have here Alex Valle, Street Fighter Legend out of southern California, to talk with us about the Evolution tournament and how he feels he’s going to do this year. So, say hi to everyone Alex.

Alex:  Hey, what’s going on everyone?

Adam:  OK, coming through loud and clear. So, tell us a little about yourself. Who are you? How old are you? When were you born? Where were you born?

Alex:  My name is Alex Valle. I was born in Lima, Peru. I came down the States when I was about 4 years old. I’ve been playing Street Fighter since 1991. I’ve been around, man, since arcade live in the 90’s really boomed, around Champion Edition. From then on man, the rest is history: playing games, winning tournaments, winning left and right up till now.

Adam:  For anyone who’s been around for a while, you’re pretty much a household name in the community. Everyone know’s who you are by reputation and by name, but I think a lot of these younger guys might not know you. You’re not as what I call “YouTube Popular” as Daigo or Justin Wong. So tell us a bit about what you’ve accomplished in the Street Fighter community over the years

Alex:  Well, one of the very first internet gathering based tournaments was called B3: Battle By the Bay, which was organized by the EVO founders Tom and Tony Cannon. They posted on the alt.games.sf2 newsgroups back in the day; I think that’s right. I wasn’t very internet savvy at that time, though. All that stuff to me was like word of mouth. So you had a tournament that was advertised on the internet, which was unheard of. Usually tournaments were advertised by word of mouth or little flyers or what not.

This was about the time I met Mike Watson: maybe a year and a half before that tournament. He basically bred me, and took me in the right direction in top-level play. Right when I played Watson the very first time, he just destroyed everything that I had. Everything that I thought that I accomplished was like nothing; I just lost.

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Evolution Championship Series is proud to announce a partnership with Namco Bandai Games. What does this mean for the fans and participants of the Evo Championship Series? Tekken 6: BR will be on hand at the event for all tournament attendees to test out. On top of that, we are holding a exhibition tournament on Tekken 6, to see who the best players are! Make sure you are on hand for this monumental event.

Make sure to make those travel arrangements now!

For the full press release and information, take the jump.

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