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.
Appearance
El Fuerte is a short, but well-built Hispanic male. His official measurements are B120／W82／H90. He is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs in at 154 lbs. He dresses in a luchadore's uniform to match his playing style. He is topless, but wears black wrestling bands on his arms with a gold sash around his waist. He wears short, white, wrestlers tights having three blue stars on the rear that are buttoned up either thigh with four golden buttons. He also wears white, laced, wrestlers boots with golden soles. His mask follows the pattern of the rest of his outfit, being white with gold trim and having three blue stars on his forehead. 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.
Story
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!".
Other appearances
UDON comics
El Fuerte appear in UDON's Street Fighter IV comic which focus on the game's newcomers (himself included).
Trivia
- It is entirely possible that El Fuerte was based on El Stingray, a similar character from Saturday Night Slam Masters and Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters 2. Both are Hispanic wrestlers featured in Capcom games.
- 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".
- In the UDON comics, T. Hawk, watching a wrestling match on TV in a restaurant, requests that the channel be changed, since he can't stand pro wrestling. After El Fuerte hears him badmouth both pro wrestling and R. Mika, Fuerte bursts from the kitchen and yells at him (this is due Fuerte being a big fan of Mika, as her image adorns every piece of his cooking attire).
- This could possibly be the reason they are rivals in Super Street Fighter IV. Another possible reason they are rivals is hinted from T. Hawk's dialogue of "Looks like I have more to teach you" prior to his rival match against El Fuerte, it would suggest that Fuerte might have lost to T. Hawk before the events of SSFIV, or perhaps that T. Hawk was a mentor to El Fuerte prior to the events in the game.
- 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.
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