Twice a month, a popular night spot in Koreatown is transformed into a makeshift boot camp for a cadre of gamers to achieve mastery of old-school arcade games.
Their recent goal: training to take home the prize at the EVO esport championship in Las Vegas this weekend – where the main attraction is the latest edition of the ‘80s franchise, Street Fighter 6 – and to put SoCal on the map.
The Down Back Club (DBC) meets every other Tuesday at Mama Lion on Western Avenue, the longstanding Koreatown bar.
The dimly lit cocktail lounge near the Wiltern is typically more of a setting for a first date or a casual business meet-up.But gathered under its chandeliers earlier this month wasa group of about 100 people, staring into screens big and small, fingers deftly working a controller stick, as they practice the “down-back” – one of the foundational maneuvers in Street Fighter where a player pushes the down and back buttons together, sending their character into a crouched blocking position.
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