Let's set the stage. The year is 2014. It's six years after John "Choiboy" Choi's fighting game peak, the incredible Evo 2008 where he took home the championship in both Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Capcom vs. SNK 2. Taking two individual (non-team) tournaments in the same Evo has never happened again since.
Choi has taken a pretty significant step back from competing since his dual victories in 2008, choosing to focus on his health, work, family, and tournament organizing as the head of NorCal Regionals. He made Top 8 for the final time at Evo 2009, taking second in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. By the time Street Fighter IV became the main game at Evo in the early 2010s, Choi wasn't grinding the way he used to. He still loved fighting games, but Peak John Choi was decidedly in the past.
But that didn't stop him from entering and trying his hand. His next opponent in pools at this year's Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament? None other than one of the only other players to ever accomplish what Choi did in 2008: Daigo Umehara. Daigo's Guilty Gear XX and Super Turbo victories in both 2003 and 2004 remain the only other examples of a player taking not one but two individual (non-team) Evo brackets in the same year.
This was a clash of legends, but one with a clear favorite. Choi was all but retired—a TO taking another shot as a competitor for old times’ sake. Daigo was still competing on a world-class level, just a few years removed from adding two more Evo titles to his legendary resume with his Street Fighter IV wins in 2009 and 2010. He had reached Top 8 in Evo's Street Fighter IV bracket five straight times. Choi was a legend himself, but this wasn't expected to be a highly competitive match as much as a nostalgic opportunity to watch two legends who had scrapped it out so many times on big stages in older games do it yet again, so many years later.
This was supposed to be an easy win for Daigo. But then, for the next five minutes, it felt like the tournament setup and the people watching it were transported back in time. John Choi was turning this Ultra Street Fighter IV match into a Street Fighter II match. His combos were not exactly what you'd call optimal. But the man was playing the fireball and footsies game to perfection. He was a rock. Daigo simply couldn't hit him. For a brief moment, John Choi proved that the fundamental skills that made him a fighting game legend are truly eternal.
This set, of course, is not the reason why John Choi is an Evo Hall of Famer. But it is the perfect illustration of the skills that brought him here.
The story of John Choi's fighting game career dates back to the California arcades of the mid-1990s. Although he was more focused on real life martial arts in his youth, participating in taekwondo and wrestling, he would still find time to hop on his bike and head to arcades like Sunnyvale Golfland. But his fighting game interest didn't turn into an obsession until after his high school graduation:
"It's just my very nature. I'm one that doesn't like to dabble in stuff, so if I do something, I really do it. I did Taekwondo for 12 years... I did that for a long time. I was really, extremely focused. [I] came to the states, and I took up wrestling, and I did that for many years. I also played Street Fighter on the side, but it was after high school. When I got into college, I had to give up my wrestling patch because it took too much of a toll on me. I needed something new to focus on. I've always been into that competitive spirit."
His timing couldn't have been more perfect. The FGC was about to start growing from the tournaments Choi attended in his youth, where the prizes were free pizzas from the local pizza place, into a truly international phenomenon. Choi was there from the very beginning. He didn't just attend the very first B3—Battle By the Bay, the spiritual predecessor to Evo—he was in Grand Finals of its Street Fighter Alpha 2 bracket, matched against his fellow Hall of Famer and the eventual champion, Alex Valle.
Four years later, B3 finally got its follow-up tournament, the aptly named B4. There, John Choi had a tournament that would be the crown jewel for just about any fighting game player's career. He got his revenge over Valle, the biggest rival of Choi's career, taking the Street Fighter Alpha 3 crown over the man who denied him in Alpha 2 at B3. To that title he added second in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and third in both Street Fighter II: Turbo and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. He had another big year at B5 in 2001, taking second in Super Turbo and third in Street Fighter Alpha 3.
In 2002, Choi participated on a team of top American fighting game players representing the United States against Japan in a history-making battle that would span four different games: Super Turbo, Alpha 3, 3rd Strike, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Choi represented the United States along with legends like Alex Valle, Mike Watson, and Eddie Lee, with Hsien Chang, Seth Killian and Ricki Ortiz serving as backups. The Japanese team, featuring Daigo among others, took the three Street Fighter games, but the American team was able to take one in MvC2.
Getting to play the top Japanese players and getting to see the unique techniques and skills developed across the ocean gave Choi new inspiration. "When Daigo showed up, it opened our eyes and showed us how behind we were. That sparked a fire in people," Choi said. "When Evolution became a bigger presence and we moved to Las Vegas, it opened up the doors to be a truly international competition."
You couldn't tell the story of the early Evos without John Choi. Between 2002 and 2007, Choi made six different Top 8s between Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Street Fighter II, peaking with a second-place finish in Street Fighter II at Evo 2007, where he fell to fellow Hall of Famer Tokido in Grand Finals.
Choi nearly skipped out on Evo 2008. His dad had just been diagnosed with cancer, and less than a week before the tournament, underwent a risky new surgery in an attempt to treat it. "There was a lot of stuff going on in my family life, so I was going to cancel my trip," Choi said. But after his dad's surgery was successful, things changed. "He came out, the surgery went fine. He said, 'There's no need for you to just stay here. I'm doing my thing. You should just go do yours.’"
Given everything, Choi hadn't really spent a ton of time grinding Street Fighter in the months leading up to Evo. Somehow, that might have been exactly what he needed. "When I actually got there, it was a completely different mindset than previous years. I was just happy to be there and there were a lot bigger things going on. I think that helped me overcome some of those obstacles. That Evo, I had a completely different mindset and just played the matches like it was casual matches, and I ended up prevailing."
By 2008, Evo had become truly international, with multiple countries, including the ever-strong Japan, sending their best to compete in Vegas. In CvS2, Choi won with a dominant performance through winners, only dropping the first set of Grand Finals to BAS before locking up the tournament by 2-0ing him right back.
Things were not so simple in the Street Fighter II bracket. Choi was sent to losers before Top 8 and had to make a spirited losers run. Once there, he took out Shirts, Kusomondo, and three legends of the FGC in Tokido, Alex Valle and Nuki. In doing so, he made history, joining Daigo in accomplishing something many in the FGC probably thought they'd never see again in taking two individual Evo titles in the same year, a feat that hasn't been matched since. Choi was even able to repay his dad for encouraging him to travel to what wound up being the tournament of a lifetime, using the winnings to help pay for his post-surgery physical therapy.
"Looking back, it was almost a fairy-tale story," Choi later told ESPN. "It was a victory on all fronts for me: personal, family and competitive."
That would mark the end of Choi's most serious days as a competitor, although he would return to the Evo main stage one final time in 2009 when he placed 2nd in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Those who knew him knew he still had some gas left in the tank -- as he proved with that legendary 2014 upset against Daigo -- but by then, Choi had different priorities.
Talking of his 2008 double championship, “Since then, my attitude toward Street Fighter and life in general changed a lot. When you have a life-changing experience like that, it tends to do that to people.” It's not like Choi left the FGC, never to be seen again. He simply took on a different role, one just as important, if not moreso, than his role as a competitor.
He was already laying that foundation during his playing years. He was basically the Cannon brothers' ambassador to Japan in Evo's early years, helping coordinate visits and even driving players to and from the airport. After stepping back as a player, he decided to focus on organizing and mentoring work. He started NorCal Regionals, an event that was one of the most prestigious regional tournaments, and ran it until COVID forced its closure in 2020. He also was the mentor of one of the strongest players of the 2000s and 2010s in Ricki Ortiz.
The Evo Hall of Fame isn't just meant to honor great fighting game players, although John Choi certainly belongs on that merit alone. It's also about community impact, about people who have left their mark on the scene. Choi's last Evo Top 8 may have come over 15 years ago, but he has been making an impact on the scene in his own way ever since, through his mentoring and organizing work and by laying the foundation for Evo itself, an event that could not be what it is today without him.
And hey, as Daigo found out in 2014, even if he might fight like an old man, those old man fundamentals can still win you games. Just this past year, Choi took the silver medal in the Evo Community Showcase for both the games he won back in 2008, Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Street Fighter II. Fundamentals truly are forever.
