I can’t believe this. I never thought there is a second person who has lived through the need to learn Tekken.

Story time! Back in ‘16, I used to work in a coworking space. Every Friday night there was a “retro” tournament, where one of the guys that works for the coworking space popped an old PS2, put on Tekken 3, and we would have a serious AF tournament with bets, prizes and the coveted Slack title “Undisputed Tekken 3 champion”. Fuck did I want that flair bad. The current holder was this really weasly looking guy, who was sorta creepy. Gave shoulder rubs to all his female coworkers kinda type, y’know?

I had to beat him.

Sadly, I was pretty trash. Outside of doing a few basic moves with Brian, there was nothing I could do. Forshadowing, for everyone that knows how to play Tekken 3, later I realised he was an Eddy cheeser button masher. He whooped my ass, I couldn’t come near him at all.

First thing I did when I got home was to check ebay’s listings for a PS2 and Tekken 3. I decided on a main, Paul Phoenix, and picked Xiaoyu as well. I played for hours upon hours, days, weeks. I watched videos of the best tekken players to figure out the timing of juggle combos. I invested a stupid amount of time to really improve my Tekken skills. Not a pro-level for sure, but the more I played and watched videos, the more I realised that this guy sucks, and he’s just a cheeser.

I still participated in the weekly tournaments playing Brian, weakly like, to not reveal my true self until I was ready.

One day, I felt it’s time. We did a best of 3. I destroyed him, and then the announcer on the tv screen said “Perfect”. Literally no one cared, but my heart was beating like CRAZY. The flair was mine.