Street Fighter II/Balrog

Click here for more information about Balrog's other fighting game appearances.

As a boxer, Balrog is the only fighter in the Street Fighter II series that has no kick attacks. All of the kick buttons make Balrog perform punches.

When Street Fighter II was localized in America, Capcom was afraid of a lawsuit from Mike Tyson over a character with his likeness and a similar sounding name (Mike Bison). Additionally, when the designers presented the game to Capcom USA's marketing department, they believed that the name Vega sounded like a weaker character's name.

Background
Balrog was once a great boxing champion and prize fighter. He was banned from boxing for permanently injuring his opponents (as well as for his illegal maneuvers, particularly his headbutt), so he joined the Shadoloo criminal organization, and worked his way up from the bottom, eventually becoming Bison's enforcer. While running errands for M. Bison (Vega in Japan), he killed Dhalsim's elephant with a single Gigaton Punch. In one mission, Balrog was 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 from it. When the Psycho Drive exploded, Balrog realized that he had not been paid recently. When M. Bison was killed at the hands of Akuma, ownership of Shadoloo was transferred to the former prize fighter. Unfortunately, he ended up running the entire organization into the ground in no time. After the fall of Shadoloo, Balrog became nothing more than a bum on the streets.

HD Remix Alterations

 * Turn punch and headbutt award less super meter.
 * Small and medium headbutts travel slightly farther and are barely less safe.
 * Throw range decreased slightly.
 * First hit of throw does less damage.
 * Turn Punch can be performed by holding 2 punches or 2 kicks, rather than all 3
 * Super does a little less damage (around 50% rather than 60%).
 * Super input window is larger and is a fixed size, rather than random size.