Balrog (Street Fighter)
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Balrog (Mike Bison in Japan) is a character from the Street Fighter fighting game series.
Story
He was banned from boxing for permanently injuring his opponents, so he joined the Shadoloo criminal organization, and worked his way up from the bottom. While running errands for M. Bison (Vega in Japan), he killed Dhalsim's elephant with a single Gigaton Punch. One mission had Balrog sent to terminate Birdie. Although he did not know why, Balrog went anyway. Birdie told him about the Psycho Drive, and Balrog agreed to help him find it, thinking he could make money off of it. When the Psycho Drive exploded, Balrog realized that he had not been paid recently. After the fall of Shadoloo, Balrog ended up being a bum on the streets.Name change
When Street Fighter II was released in America, Capcom was afraid of a lawsuit from Mike Tyson over a character with his likeness and a similar sounding name (Mike Bison). They decided to rotate the names of three of the four boss characters in the following manner:- The African-American boxer is known as M.Bison in Japan and Balrog elsewhere.
- The Spanish assasin-bullfighter is known as Balrog in Japan and Vega elsewhere.
- The evil dictator and head of Shadowloo is known as Vega in Japan and M.Bison elsewhere.
Trivia
- Balrog's Japanese name Mike Bison was said to be a parody of Tyson, possibly bearing the name of "Michael Gerard Bison."
- His in-game portrait in the earlier games bore an uncanny resemblance to Tyson. Later games featured portraits of Balrog that didn't look like Tyson at all.
- A character named Mike appeared in the original Street Fighter as an opponent in the game. Mike was an African American who has a similar appearance, shares the same given name Balrog has in the Japanese version of the series (Mike Bison), backstory (both were banned from boxing after killing an opponent), and reason to why they entered the World Warrior tournament (to become wealthy). Despite this, Balrog and Mike are officially considered separate characters (as evident in All About Capcom Taisen Kakuto Games and other sourcebooks). This is considered one of the most confusing aspects of the series.
- In the live action Street Fighter movie, Balrog is depicted as an ex-champion boxer whose career was sabotaged by M. Bison. He is also a close friend of Chun-Li and E. Honda. He is played by actor Grand L. Bush.
- Balrog can be seen in the background of Jumbo Flapjack's arena in Ring of Destruction, the sequel to Saturday Night Slam Masters. According to canon, the two once battled each other in a Vale Tudo fighting tournament, a fight which Balrog won.
Wikibooks has a manual, textbook or guide to this subject:
- Balrog's winquote of "I got paid!" is possibly a parody of a similar line spoken in Street Fighter: The Movie in which Zangief responds to Dee Jay's reasons for working for Bison by saying he was paid a fortune to work for him, in which Zangief responds by saying "You got paid?!"
- One of Balrog's win quotes in Street Fighter Alpha 3 is "Next time, I'm gonna bite your ear off!" This is a direct reference to Mike Tyson, the boxer in which was based off Balrog along with his name in Japan.
See also
| Adon – Akuma – Alex – Balrog – Birdie – Blanka – Cammy – Charlie – Chun-Li – Cody – Dan – Dee Jay – Dhalsim – Dudley – Eagle – E. Honda – Elena – Fei Long – Gen – Gill – Guile – Guy – Hugo – Ibuki – Ingrid - Karin – Ken – M. Bison – Maki – Makoto – Necro – Oro – Q – R. Mika – Remy – Rolento – Rose – Ryu – Sagat – Sakura – Sean – Sodom – The Dolls - T. Hawk – Twelve – Urien – Vega – Yang – Yun – Zangief |
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