Hello guys!

Here is a thread I have been planning to start weeks ago about a question I have for years.

I am a big fan of Street Fighter games, from the SNES to PSONE ones especially. Well the question is why did the American version of Street Fighter made such confusing changes in the original characters names? Some of them include Nash/Charlie and Gouki/Akuma, which is not a problem at all, but then these three character's names have been permuted:

(USA) Balrog = M. Bison (JAP)
(USA) Vega = Balrog (JAP)
(USA) M.Bison = Vega (JAP)

When I would speak about one of those characters with my friends we would always think of another, since some of us had only access to the Japanese SF, which is funny but I would still prefer keeping the original names or changing them for non-existing ones.

When I asked the same question in a Japanese community they claimed they did not know about those changes. What about you guys? I personally think that this has something to do with the Mike Tyson reference in M.Bison.