The main event of Bar Fights II will be a special SoCal vs. New York City’s Empire Arcadia 5v5 exhibition match!

New York City’s Empire Arcadia:

• Justin Wong (2nd Place Evo 2009, #1 player in USA)
• Arturo “sabin” Sanchez (beat Daigo in a money match at Evo)
• Joe “iloveu” Ciaramelli (2nd Place East Coast Throwdown)
• Sanford Kelly (4th Place Evo 2009)
• Martin “Marn” Phan (1st Place West Coast Warzone)

Representing SoCal:

• Alex Valle (2nd Place West Coast Warzone, SBO 2009 Qualifier)
• Ed Ma (3rd Place Evo 2009)
• Combofiend (SBO 2009 Qualifier, 9th Place Evo 2009)
• ?
• ?

The remaining three spots will be filled by the winners of three qualifying tournaments, one at Arcade Infinity and two at Denjin Arcade, which will be held the weekend of Bar Fights II, October 9th and 10th.

This match has been brewing for quite some time now because of the East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry. At Evo 2009, a regional 5v5 exhibition tournament was held, with 8 regions across the country sending their best players to compete for bragging rights for best in the country. The grand finals was expected to be the SoCal team vs. Empire Arcadia, but that didn’t happen because SoCal lost to the Wild Card team. Empire Arcadia ended up beating the Wild Card team so nothing got settled until just recently.

At West Coast Warzone, Marn, one of the East Coast’s best players blew through all of the West Coast and beat Street Fighter legend Alex Valle in the grand finals to win 1st Place. Bar Fights II is a chance for both coasts to prove who is at the top of the game right now as well as a chance for Alex Valle to get his revenge on Marn.

Aside from the main event, we have a very exciting undercard with matches involving several of SoCal’s rising stars such as UTJ and NorCal’s Filipino Champ, both of whom play Dhalsim and placed Top 8 at Warzone.

In addition, we will be streaming the entire event for free via UStream so that people who can’t make it out to the event can still take part in the hype.