Legendary SF Artist Reveals True Winner of Street Fighter II

Street Fighter lore is a very interesting subject, and the story of this beloved franchise isn’t as straightforward as many would like. That is why, to this day, we continue to learn new things about the game’s story.

One of these revelations came from Akira Yasuda, otherwise known as Akiman. He is a legendary artist who did a lot of work on Street Fighter and other high-profile projects. In an exchange on X, someone asked him about the canonical winner of the Street Fighter II tournament.

Akiman answered that there is no canonical winner. His words, translated from Japanese, were:

“There is no official canon for Street Fighter II. The atmosphere suggests that a tournament took place only when playing as Ryu, so it's not even decided whether a tournament actually happened or not.

“Gouki does not appear in Street Fighter II.”

According to the story, Ryu canonically won the first Street Fighter tournament by defeating Sagat. However, in the second game, there was no clear ending, as each character had a different one. For Chun-Li, the goal was to avenge her father, while Ken wanted to settle down with his wife, Eliza.

Interestingly, in the same thread, Matt Moylan, the director of publishing for UDON Comics, which has a licensing agreement to adapt the franchise into comics, stated that the official UDON comics have Ryu reaching the finals. However, his fight with M. Bison, otherwise known as Dictator, was interrupted by the appearance of Akuma, who was also unable to finish Ryu because of the intervention of Gouken, Ryu's master.

So, when all is said and done, it seems that no one canonically won the second Street Fighter tournament.

There have been four canonical tournaments across the Street Fighter series, with three different winners. Ryu won the first, while Zangief and Alex won the other two, respectively.