Russian Wrestling Is Always Number One

This week seemed to be big on discussion of grapplers on a couple of websites. Sonice Hurricane has a good article on learning Zangief because he helps you learn when and how to take advantage of grabs. There is also an article on SRK called Grappler Footsies. The content of the article doesn't just apply to Zangief, but it has Grappler in the title and uses his moves an example, so I'm including it here.

I think learning Zangief would be a good thing for me to do. The most I have used him it to mash Lariet to get through the time attack and survival challenges. The AI has problems dealing with it as an attack. I've found this to be the case with Blanka's electricity as well, but Lariet ignores fireballs and hits harder, so I use it. I've only spent a little bit actually practicing Zangief. His 720 degree super/ultra is definitely the hardest for me to get right. I don't have too much of a problem doing the motion, but you can't do the move just while standing around. If you try to, you will end up jumping and that doesn't work. The only reason that you can do a 360 degree motion without jumping is because you really only need 270 degrees and the move comes out before you actually jump. So how do you get the 720 to work? You have to buffer most of the move while Zangief is stuck in another animation. Jumping, ultra freeze, EX, all give you time to get the motion out. Also, like the 360, you really don't need a full 720. I believe you only need 540.

As with all the characters, there is some great information on Zangief that I will be looking at over the next few days, mainly these three posts on the forums at SRK.