Today is a nice opportunity to talk about a lot of things that are intertwined.
-- The silly talk about greatest fighting game player ever.
-- Valle saying competition was so much stiffer 20 years ago
-- Sonic Fox saying 99% of us suck.

First off, Fox is greatest FG player of all time, to date. You can make a fine argument that it's still Tokido and Fox needs to produce results in one more "main game that isn't NRS" to solidify their position as the greatest. But, as far as I'm concerned, they are already there.

I believe it was MajinObama who said he was glad that Sonic didn't want his family or his job or anything in his life because he was sure Sonic would take it. Sonic was the best by the end of Injustice 1 and never looked back for the next 5 years of NRS games.

Sonic was a regular top 8 player in Uniel and didn't even use Gordeau. Sonic ended up being one of the top 2(?) players in Skullgirls. They got top 8 at the first SFV major (Final Round 2016) with FANG. And, they beat the Japanese anime braintrust to win Evo in DBFZ

One thing about the old FGC that is similar to sports is that the greatest players from the old days are the ones who would have still been competitive today. Daigo would have been the beast in this era too. The average player however, so much stronger today

15+ years ago, the average player was much weaker than the average player today. If you played an old game, used a top tier character, half way learned your basics, that was enough to beat 75% of the players in the US who you would meet.

Just picking a top tier wasn't enough to win Evo. But, it was enough to place at locals everywhere except larger cities like LA and NYC. T5:DR started us on the path of games having good enough balance that low tier heroes were something which you had to respect.

Now, you have to actually know almost all of your match ups, or else, you are going to spend 100s of dollars, travel 6 hours by car, just to get your ass kicked by some mid to low tier character which you have never fought before. It sucks when it happens to you.

Old games were harder to play, that's for sure. Wake up windows were tiny. You didn't have buffers to read your button presses for more than the one frame which you pressed them. And custom combos. Yikes. Bison and Sakura had lightning loops in CvS2. I couldn't do those either

And to prove some of my points, look at me. I'm a forum lurking scrub from The Middle of Nowhere, VA. A close friend of mine got 33rd at the first Evo for GGXX. But, he never won a local because he never beat me in the XX series.

My friend was rocking a barely 1 month old Slayer, who was top tier. He also had good execution, as he could do bite loops reliably and also could hit the solo MvC2 Iron Man infinite routes. Picking a top tier and learning basics got him to 33rd. Not enough to get him to top 8

I got 17th at the first SF4 major (Final Round 09). I played the easiest good character (Balrog) and while I've never had great execution, I stick to easy stuff that I will not screw up. I don't do risky shit. And I anti-air people. That and a little bracket luck is all it took.

That's as close to a top 8 as I ever sniffed at a Final Round in SF4. The level of the average player ramped up quickly after that. I think I was 97th the next year. Maybe 65th the year after. And 0-2 in 2012. The average player just got better and I didn't improve with them

Which leads to the final point. 99% might be too high of a number, but Sonic Fox had a point. A large % of the community is bad because they will not do the proper training to be great. I don't mean grinding combos. I mean grinding pressure and defense.

Practicing defense and practicing pressure and Oki will take you further than trying to learn the crazy neta combos. FChamp never had optimal UMvC3 Mag combos. But, good luck ever hitting him. Most top players in games are this way. Decent combos, but, good luck hitting them

Side note: This is why I love semifinals at majors. You have the players who are not solid enough to get top 8. But, these kids train and have wild combos and set ups that they are dying to hit someone with. You won't see innovation in the top 8. But, you will in top 64 or 32!!

If you made it this far, thanks TLDR:
- Valle is correct, execution in old games was difficult
- Valle was wrong. The average player today > average player 15 years ago
- Imo, SFox is the goat
- 99% might be high. But, a lot of the fgc labs the wrong shit, then begs for nerfs