El Fuerte

El Fuerte(エル・フォルテ) is a Mexican luchador in the Street Fighter games who made his first appearance in Street Fighter IV. He spends his time perfecting his lucha libre skills and honing his cooking abilities and his indomitable spirit is a match for even the legendary Zangief. El Fuerte now travels the world in an effort to assemble the greatest recipes on the planet.

In English he is voiced by J.B. Blanc. In Japanese his seiyuu is Daisuke Ono.

Street Fighter IV
El Fuerte's role in the story is minimal. He joins the tournament to fight the other champions and discover what they eat and also test his lucha libre skills. Along the way, he meets Zangief who is his rival and fights to see if "A hurricane is stronger than a cyclone." El Fuerte's ending finds him asking what recipe is suitable for a great hero. E. Honda and Zangief suggest their favorite food (Chankonabe and Borscht, respectively). El Fuerte then suggests and mixes them together and adds some chilli peppers and some lemon. The results apparently tasted foul, as Honda and Zangief's faces turn blue with disgust. Then an oblivious El Fuerte proclaims the food "tastes so great it sends you straight to heaven!".

Super Street Fighter IV
El Fuerte's story is similar to his story in Street Fighter IV. He joins the tournament for a reason stated as "The ultimate fighter, deserves the ultimate menu!" and claiming "No matter what, I will always whip up a meal for my adversaries!", claiming that winning the tournament will have him "Reach the stars of ultimate delicacy!". El Fuerte's ending has him in the kitchen, cooking, with a fellow cook asking about what the green liquid next to El Fuerte's is. Claiming it was spoken about by "A sumo-wrestler Friend" (assumed to be E. Honda), it is revealed as Aojiru, to which he praises its nutritional qualities, but questions why the Japanese call it "Blue Juice" when it is green. The cook asks why he's putting it in the chili soup (though a close-up shows many things in the pot, including fish-bone). El Fuerte's reasoning is that "Adding one delicious thing to another delicious thing always equals... more deliciousness.". With this in mind, he adds some chocolate he got from someone he calls "that French Mercenary" (assumed to be Abel), which causes the fellow cook to snap, shouting "You're just gonna make it worse!".

UDON comics
El Fuerte appears in UDON's Street Fighter IV comic which focus on the game's newcomers (himself included).

Appearance
El-Fuerte is a short, but very muscular Hispanic man. His official measurements are B120／W82／H90. He is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs in at 154lbs.

Clothing
El Fuerte dresses in typical luchador uniform to match his playing style. He is topless, but wears black wrestling bands on his arms and a gold sash on his waist. He wears short, white, wrestlers tights. They are buttoned up his thighs with four golden buttons and they also have three blue stars on his rear. He also wears white, laced, wrestlers boots with a golden sole. His mask follows the pattern of the rest of his outfit, being white with gold trim and having three blue stars on his forehead.

Hairstyle
El Fuerte's hair sticks out of his mask in a flared out ponytail-top. His hair also reaches out of the bottom of his mask and is brown in color.

Trivia

 * His name may be Spanish for "the strong" or "the fort", referencing his fighting spirit; his aspiration to hone his cooking may be based off the phrase plato fuerte, Spanish for "main dish".
 * El Fuerte's Ultra Combo resembles Kinnikuman Big Body 's "Maple Leaf Clutch".
 * Also, El Fuerte's Ultra Combo seems to be based on a Hurracarana Pin from Wrestling.
 * His Japanese voice-actor, Ono Daisuke, portrayed another over-the-top chef in the anime series Minami-ke.
 * El Fuerte is shown to be a huge fan of R. Mika in the UDON comics. In one scene, one of her matches is being shown on TV at a restaurant. T. Hawk, watching, requests that the channel be changed, since he can't stand pro wrestling. After hearing T. Hawk badmouth both pro wrestling, and Mika, El Fuerte bursts from the kitchen and yells at T. Hawk. Mika's image adorns every piece of El Fuerte's cooking attire, and Fuerte seems to keep a lot of Mika themed knick-knacks around, such as lunchboxes, posters, figurines, etc.
 * Despite speaking Spanish, El Fuerte may make a mistake with his own language. Sometimes, when defeating a female character, he will still refer to them as "amigo." The more accurate version would be "amiga," the feminine version of the word meant to be used when referring to a woman. This may be a developer oversight, similar to how Guile would tell Chun-Li to "Go home and be a family man" in Street Fighter II.
 * Concept artwork for Street Fighter IV showed El Fuerte wearing a scarf around his neck instead of a sash around his waist.
 * El Fuerte has a sous-chef seen in his intro for Street Fighter IV and in his ending for Super Street Fighter IV.
 * El Fuerte's mask bears a remarkable resemblance to El Santo's, one of Mexico's most influential and iconic Luchador enmascarado.
 * It is possible that El Fuerte's backstory is inspired by the title character from the film Nacho Libre, who is a terrible chef who decides to become a luchador.
 * One of El Fuerte's concept alt. costumes looks similar to that of WWE wrestler Rey Mysterio, specifically the attire used during his Wrestlemania 22 entrance.
 * El Fuerte makes a cameo appearance in Street Fighter X Tekken on a billboard.
 * Marshall Law's Swap Costume is based on El Fuerte's attire.
 * Interesting enough, there's also two characters from Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon with kinda similar names to El Fuerte and Crimson Viper from SFIV; El Toro Fuerte and Viper of the J-Team.
 * Though never explicitly mentioned, it is possible that El Fuerte may have been a former member of T.Hawk's tribe. Dialogue during their rival battle indicate that El Fuerte has known T.Hawk for a long time and is acquainted with other members of the tribe ("How's the chief doing?" "Strong as ever!"). It is also possible that T.Hawk may have trained El Fuerte how to fight, as his post battle quote is "It's like I've always told you, it takes more than just strength to win." The fact that both characters hail from Mexico also hints towards this.

Quotes
See El Fuerte/Quotes.