Before there was Evo, there was B3 -- Battle By the Bay, a tournament to finally settle the debate of who was the best Street Fighter player in the country. It was held at the Golfland arcade in Sunnyvale, California, and was pretty massive as far as these things went back then: a whopping 40 players showed up to duke it out in Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2.

Alex "CaliPower" Valle had been playing fighting games for a few years by this point, ever since the hype around Street Fighter II grabbed his attention from the single player games he had been sinking his quarters into at his local arcades. Dominant SoCal players from back in the day like John Choi and Mike Watson had shown Valle just how high the skill ceiling in these games could go, and in doing so, they helped build an Evo Hall of Famer.

"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."

This was about a year and a half prior to B3. Valle would spend the interim period grinding with legends like Watson. "Going back to that one year and a half, I just took everything from him and Jeff Schaefer, Martian Vega, Thao Duong, from the real OG's from down here," Valle said.

Valle attended his first tournament in Las Vegas, tagging along with John Choi, and it was a solid debut: a 4th place finish in the original Street Fighter Alpha. But Valle really started to ascend upon the release of Street Fighter Alpha 2.

"I believe the Alpha series catered to my style of play," said Valle, a pioneer of aggressive, rushdown gameplay. "Being aggressive opens doors with those games where I could innovate with new discoveries."

Valle had a solid run in Street Fighter II Turbo at B3, placing fourth behind Graham Wolfe, Jason Nelson, and his mentor, Watson. But in Street Fighter Alpha 2, he'd start to write the legend of CaliPower. Valle stampeded through the bracket, making it to Winners Finals against John Choi without much resistance.

The battle Valle and Choi would embark on across the next three sets would be the stuff of legends, and not just because it went the absolute distance, a full 15 games. Valle, with his back finally pushed against the wall, busted out one of the techniques he would be known by for years to come: the Valle CC, an unblockable Custom Combo that catches the opponent as they rise.

Even with this tactic, Valle couldn't keep Choi down for long, and the sets kept going back and forth. You could also see why Valle waited until he felt he needed it to break it out: soon after Valle employed it for the first time, Choi figured whatever Ryu could do, Ken could too, and started using it for himself. If Valle was going to close this one out, it wasn't just going to be because of his fancy new technique.

After a tense win on time, Choi forced a fifth and final game in the Grand Finals Reset. Valle had started Winners Finals with Ken and eventually won the set with Ryu. He had stuck with Ryu for the first nine games of Grand Finals. But with the tournament on the line against his biggest rival -- according to Valle, the only real competition for him at the time in Alpha 2 -- Valle decided to bet it all on a counterpick: Sagat.

Valle locked in. He dominated Round 2, using Sagat's incredible fireball game to draw Choi in and then keeping him out with a barrage of Sagat's lengthy kicks. Things were looking rough in Round 3, though. Valle spent two super bars with no reward, and after an attempt at a Custom Combo got blown up by Choi's own custom combo, Valle was down by nearly half a life bar and stuck in the corner. Against a rock like Choi, this is usually a death sentence. Valle tried to open him up with another Custom Combo. No luck, Choi just put him to the floor with a Shoryuken. With just 28 seconds left, Valle was on a sliver of health and Choi had well over half of his life bar left. He needed a miracle.

And he found it. Valle bet it all on a double forward jump into a Custom Combo, and it caught Choi, nearly erasing the life deficit in one blow. Clearly shaken, Choi tried to force the one hit he needed to end the tournament, but Valle unleashed a Tiger Uppercut through Choi's Custom Combo attempt and finished off what remains one of the FGC's greatest comebacks nearly 3 decades later.

Valle and Choi dominated the Street Fighter Alpha 2 competitive scene. Despite playing and learning the game together, they had wildly differing styles. Choi was a master of defense, an absolute rock. Valle? He was going to rush that shit down, a Valle trademark phrase and the playstyle he has mastered and displayed in many games since.

Two years later, Valle participated in one of the most impactful matches in fighting game history to that point: The 1998 Street Fighter Alpha 3 World Championships. This was the first ever international event sponsored by Capcom, and it culminated in a televised matchup between the winner of open bracket tournaments held in the United States and Japan. Valle claimed victory in the American bracket, and his opponent was none other than the legendary Daigo Umehara.

The games were played first to three rounds, and Valle jumped out to the lead, taking the first game 3-1 and building a 2-0 lead in game two. But then, Daigo was able to clutch up, winning the final three rounds and then taking the final game to earn the title of world champion. Still, in coming so close, Valle proved he could hang with the world's greatest, and set the stage for the rivalry between the Japanese and American FGCs for years to come.

Valle's dominance of Alpha 2 would continue at B4, the Battle by the Bay sequel held in 2000. This would be Valle's single best tournament across multiple games, as he also took home the gold in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and took second in Street Fighter II: Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Marvel vs. Capcom.

As the tournament scene evolved in the 2000s and Evolution became the successor of the Battle by the Bay series, Valle remained one of the most consistent forces in fighting games. From Evo's debut in 2002 through 2010, he was in at least one Top 8 every single year, including twice in both 2006 and 2007 (Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III).

Valle earned his entrance into the Evo Hall of Fame not just for his incredible impact as a competitor, the way he became synonymous with Ryu and championed the American FGC on national and international stages. But his impact went beyond. He was a pillar of the SoCal community, running both the weekly series Wednesday Night Fights and one of the country's premier regional tournaments in SoCal Regionals. His production company LevelUp has been broadcasting community events since 2012.

Shifting his focus to event organizing and production has meant a step back from competition, but every time you'd think you could start asking the question "Is Valle Washed?" he'd come back with an incredible performance to shut you up. In 2013, after going three years without an Evo Top 8 appearance, Valle stormed through the Street Fighter x Tekken bracket, making a spirited losers run, falling at fourth place after finally losing to Justin Wong.

In 2015, he matched up against Bonchan in Ultimate Street Fighter IV pools. Bonchan was coming off a 2nd place finish at the last Evo. Valle's best finish at a Street Fighter IV Evo came in 2011, when he placed 17th. As if that weren't enough to make Bonchan a massive favorite, Valle was playing the hulking grappler Hugo against one of the best characters in the game, and one of his worst matchups: Sagat. Despite facing one of the best players on one of the strongest zoning characters in the game, Valle was able to rush Bonchan down with the grappler, completely shutting him down and making one of the biggest upsets of the event in the process.

Valle "retired" in 2017 after participating in E-League's Street Fighter competition, ready to focus on his production company and fatherhood. But it turns out old habits die hard. Two years later, there he was again on the main stage at Evo, playing in the finals of Samurai Showdown, where he made it all the way to 5th place. No matter how retired he is, he's proven you can't sleep on him when he picks up the sticks.

He was one of the best players in the world in the early days of international tournament competition, and he remained a top-level threat for nearly two decades. Between that resume and his many contributions behind the scenes, Alex Valle was an easy choice for the Evo Hall of Fame, an appropriate reward for a lifetime of rushing that shit down.

Be sure to check out Evo Legends on EvoFGC: