El Fuerte


 * "It's Super Dynamic Cooking Time!"
 * —El Fuerte

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

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 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, 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 Chili Soup (Though a close-up shows many things in the pot, including fish-bone). El Fuertes' 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!".

Appearance
El-Fuerte is a short, but built Hispanic male. His official measurements are B120／W82／H90. He is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs in at 154lbs.

Clothing
El Fuerte dresses in a luchadore's 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

 * El Fuerte's ultra combo resembles Kinnikuman Big Body's "Maple Leaf Clutch".
 * 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. This is possibly what makes them rivals.
 * El Fuerte is one of the 19 characters from Street Fighter IV to not have second rivals, despite having a ultra combo video to include his second rival (Guy).
 * Despite being 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.

Videos
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Miscellaneous
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