Hiya!

It must be tough for Ryuichi “Woshige” Shigeno. Despite him being a really good fighting game player, he will always be known as the “What Are You Standing Up For?” guy. He’ll always be known as the guy who celebrated too early, leading to one of the most embarrassing eliminations from the EVO main stage. Still, I’m glad Woshige is taking one of the most infamous moments in EVO history and taking it in good fun. After all, he did agree to put not only his likeness in Street Fighter 6, he also even allowed Capcom to poke fun of this moment by making the What Are You Standing Up For? action into an emote for your Avatar. Oh, he’s also now a “boss” character you can fight in the V-Rival system!

Now, Capcom didn’t include him in just for the lulz. No, beating Woshige in the V-Rival system does net you rewards, such as those “beautiful” character portraits of Luke, Cammy and Akuma. You can also earn the same red Street Fighter shirt Woshige wore during that moment that lives in infamy. Yes, these are trivial rewards but, for someone who love collecting as much free stuff like I do, I just gotta have them!

The thing is, if you’re a scrub such as myself, Capom programmed Woshige to be tough and never leaves the cabinet prematurely. So, getting these rewards can be tough. Luckily, as I’ve done with the Omega Rugal Boss Challenge as well as how to beat Shin Akuma and Shin Bison, I have devised the most scrubby way to beat Woshige! So, if you’re like me AKA not really that good, I’ve found the most straightforward and braindead strategies to take him out!

A little housekeeping before we do get to the strategies. You can only select Luke, Cammy and Akuma to face off against Woshige’s Mai Shiranui. This was one of my main problems as these are not my main characters. Second, his Mai is pretty good since, as long as he gets in a clean hit, Woshige will almost always find a way to link that stray hit into a combo. Also, you can’t throw out a raw Drive Impact as Woshige’s Mai will counter Drive Impact at the very last second. So, right off the bat, don’t do that!

As there are 3 characters you can only pick from, I will be giving the most straightforward strategy for each of them. A couple of them, specifically Luke and Akuma, is surprisingly easy. Cammy, on the other hand, does require a little bit of skill.

Let’s start off with Akuma as I found him to be the easiest to beat Woshige’s Mai. The simplest path to victory is to get Akuma into the corner and keep on jumping back with heavy kick. Woshige’s Mai will usually charge in and get hit by the jump back heavy kick. If it hits, do a combo, preferably ending with Akuma’s quarter-circle back with medium punch Adamant Flame special attack as this sends Mai flying away. This will allow you to play the fireball game because, for some reason, Woshige can’t handle Akuma’s charged fireballs.

You should be able to keep Woshige from getting in close with the charged fireballs because his Mai will attempt to Drive Parry them but will let go of the Drive Parry just before the projectile hits. You may need to vary the speeds of the charged fireballs. If Woshige does manage to maneuver Mai through the projectiles, just go back to doing the jump back heavy kick into the corner into the combo. Rinse and repeat. If you happened to get knocked down or hit with a combo, performing an invincible reversal, such as an Overdrive version of Akuma’s Gou Shoryuken or any of his Super Arts should work… most of the time.

The same jump back heavy kick in the corner can be applied to Luke but you do need to change things up a little as his projectile game doesn’t work as well. Woshige’s Mai will regularly stay just out of Luke Sand Blast projectile. If you do try to compensate by attempting with the heavy version of the Sand Blast, Woshige will react to it much like he reacts to raw Drive Impact attempts and jump in with a combo. So, don’t throw them out willy-nilly!

This does mean you don’t have to get Woshige’s Mai off you and you can allow her to get in close. After all, you will be relying mostly on Luke’s jump back heavy kick into a combo for most of the damage. So, you can end the combo with something simple like the light version of Luke’s Flash Knuckle just to reset the neutral just a bit. Once again, rinse and repeat until you win. Like with Akuma, if your Luke eats a combo, you can bust out of pressure using an invincible reversal, which includes an Overdrive version of his Rising Uppercut or any of his Super Arts.

We finally get to Cammy and this proved to be the trickiest battle as your old tricks don’t work. The tried-and-true jump back heavy kick into a combo doesn’t work here! If you do try this, Woshige will use Mai’s Ryuenjin uppercut special to know your Cammy out of the air. What does work is hitting Woshige’s Mai with the tail end of the medium version of Cammy’s Spiral Arrow. Try to keep Mai just within full screen distance and, when you see her walk forward a bit, throw out the medium version of the Spiral Arrow. The tip of the attack should just barely hit, knocking Woshige’s Mai down.

Sometimes, Woshige will jump over the medium Spiral Arrow. Don’t panic when this happens as this does leave him open to a low medium kick into a light Spiral Arrow combo usually. In a way, Woshige is helping you tack on more damage than just a single attack. As you can tell, this method is very tedious as you’re just chipping away at Mai’s health one Spiral Arrow at a time. Be patient as, eventually, she’ll go down. Once again, perform an invincible reversal, like her Overdrive Cannon Spike or her Level 1 or her Level 3 Super when waking up.

Once you beat Woshige’s Mai Shiranui with Luke, Akuma and Cammy, you should have earned all the rewards for this event. The only “difficult” match up was the one with Cammy as you do need a little bit of skill to properly estimate the right distance to throw out that medium Spiral Arrow. I bet there are pros out there who got all the rewards without breaking a sweat. However, like I said, this is the scrub guide. So, it goes to show that even scrubs like us can beat Woshige!

Byee!

Do you have any other strategies to beat Professor Woshige? Let me know in the comments section below!