About

Hello everyone,

my name is Michael Y. Kwon, or as some may know me from the Tekken world as MYK. I currently reside in Southern California, where it’s only 25 cents to play the latest and greatest version of Tekken; Tekken 6:BR at the local arcade and video store down the street. I’ve been trying to expand the Tekken Community of SoCal by trying to teach new players how to play the game, and what to do and what not to do. My main goal with this site is to try expand my knowledge to educate new players and hopefully grow the Tekken Scene nationwide!

My Tekken History
My very first Tekken game was Tekken 3, back when I was 9~10 years old, on the original Playstation console. As a little kid I’ve always thought the moves and characters in Tekken were really amazing/interesting. I remember spending hours-on-end playing that game, though I never started to play competitively, since at that age I didn’t know what competitive gaming was, nor did I ever get to frequent arcades.

Around age 17~18 I used to skateboard, until one day I had an injury where I was no longer able to skate for a good 2~3 months. So during this time I had to find something to pass along the time, my friends were just starting to get into Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (3s) and would bring me along to their trips to the local arcade, Super Arcade (located in Walnut, CA) and I remember the same arcade had Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (DR). Me having played Tekken 3 while I was younger, I was a lot more familiar with the mechanics and characters of Tekken more so than Street Fighter. So I slowly started picking up DR, and would visit the arcade from time-to-time. Slowly my interest for skateboarding has diminished, and fell in love with this game.

So I’ve decided I wanted to get better, I would make it out to night sessions when all the good players would come out to play, and of course I’ve gotten my ass handed to me time-after-time. Then during the summer of 2006, Evo2k6 (one of the biggest North American fighting game tournaments) came along, and my family and I just happened to be in Vegas at the time so I decided to drop by. This opened up an entirely new world for me, the world of competitive gaming! The whole vibe/atmosphere of this event was amazing! Hundreds of players from all around the country coming out to play fighting games, I’ve never seen anything like it. This is where I met my Tekken mentor, FilthyRich.

So after Evo, I sought out Filthie and I then asked for him to take me under his wing and train me. After several months of training and trips out to his place, I slowly started seeing improvements. From getting dueced (going two and out) in tourneys to consistently placing top 10 during the FFA DR Ranking Battles (ranbats for short). In which time I would drive Kane out to FFA as well, so the whole trip up to FFA and back I would learn more just talking about the game during the hour long car drive. Then one day I placed 2nd, right under Kane at one of these ranbats. Near the end of the ranbat season, we got word of the Super Battle Opera (SBO) qualifiers tournament (the biggest fighting game tournament held in Japan, with top competitors would gather from all over the WORLD), where the qualifiers would be held in Sunnyvale, Northern California for a free trip to Japan! Teaming up with Kane/ChetChetty we went up to Norcal with a dream and a goal!

We trained extensively for about 3~4 after hearing about the qualifiers coming up. Our spirits were hurt after we lost a practice 3v3 prep-tourney held in Socal prior to the Norcal qualifiers, but we still didn’t lose sight of what was important. Before we knew it, several other Socal Tekken players and I were on our way driving up the 8~9 hours to Norcal. And so, the tournament began. After being sent into the losers bracket the first match, our team had to fight from all the way at the bottom of the losers bracket. After going through several hard won teams such as Rip’s team, Bronson/Mr.Naps’ team, Som’s team, etc. We pulled through to the Grand Finals to face off vs. QDogg (Eddy)/3zx (Heihachi)/725 (Steve). I myself lost to QDogg, and so did Chet. Our chances were looking slim, with Kane having to pull off a reverse ocv (one character victory) to even up the sets. Then Kane pulls the most cinematic movie-like reverse ocv, tying up the SET! So it’s down to the final set, I go up first again and get my revenge on QDogg, and with a close match take out 3zx. Losing to 725, Chet takes care of it and we’re off to Japan!

Having won the qualifiers, and Legendary Street Fighter player John Choi paying for our tickets what could be better than going to Japan and on a free ticket? We had two weeks in Japan and I personally just had a blast. After having found Joybox after the 2nd day or so, we went everyday during out first week stay in Shinjuku. During this time I learned quite a lot, and leveled up even more. Though our team did not do so well during the SBO tourney, it was still worth the trip for the experience.

Coming back from Japan, a month later was Evo2k7, making my first debut at the biggest North American fighting game tournament. I took 9th place out of 150+ players, just one spot away from top 8 :(. I’ve done all this in the first year of my Tekken career, and I still play Tekken competitively to this day.

Though ever since that year Tekken DR has slowly been losing it’s popularity, with the fall of the arcade scene around the country and the upcoming release for Tekken 6. People no longer wanted to play DR, though Tekken 6 wasn’t going to be released nationally. So the Tekken scene really took a dip, only a small handful of a dedicated arcades around the country went out of their way to order the expensive cabinet/board for the game (about $12,000 bucks for the cabinet, ouch). So I feel it’s my responsibility to try and revive as much of the scene as possible, and grow an even bigger scene for when Tekken 6 console release comes along.

With this site, I hope to do so. Tekken has given me so much, and this is a way I’m giving back to the community. There’s always room for improvement, and as long as we’re willing to take the time to learn, we’ll keep growing stronger! This is to the many more years of Tekken to come! Remember, if it weren’t for the players Tekken wouldn’t be where it is today. You are Tekken, I am Tekken, we are all what made Tekken get to where it is. Now let’s keep the scene strong and have ourselves some healthy competition!

Thanks for your time,
MYK