I agree with this Kane, I just feel that people get mislead into believing that whoever gets the most exposure is the best, which is simply to me ignorance. They only rely on what they know, it is what they do not know that that makes them ignorant if they comment prematurely on things without doing their proper research or acknowledging that they could be wrong. Plus I know firsthand of some people within this thread, that have been mislead into believing that the Japanese and those that get the most exposure>>> than the rest, but I am not going to say any names, they know who they are (one in particular seriously believed that because a Japanese beat the CaliMexicans in the USA at EVO ala RF in 2005 then a Japanese would beat the Mexicans in Mexico now c'mon how fanboyish/ignorant is that??? As you know skill level in the USA and Mexico is like apples and oranges in KOF so there is NO comparison whatsoever!)
You should've seen the reaction from JuareZ WarZone with people not wanting to give the Juarez and Mexican players ANY credit whatsoever as if there is no way they have the SKILL to truly beat the Japanese, which to me is simply fanboyish, it's like Daigo fanboys not being able to admit when Daigo you know, actually loses or give other people some type of credit at all!
Now with that being said I am aware of the "stick issue", which is why to rectify that we had Danke with Game of Death and the results were the same, and no one talks about that, so to rectify THAT, we have Hummer coming for Game of Death 2011, which should yet again silence critics that believe Mexico simply isn't on Japan's level remotely in KOF.
Mexico didn't have enough exposure in KOF before, it was all Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc this, over and over, SBO this, Duelling the KOF that, The Great Battle, all the glitz, glory, glamour, HD graphics, the works, while you got some judging Mexican skill level over GGPO which is another issue I have seen which is ignorant as well.
I agree with what you say also, I tell people SBO is the Eurasian Championships (and even then not so sure if it is that if not even the Middle East gets to go), it is no way shape or form the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, it includes ONLY people from the continent of Eurasia, and some from the USA, but does not include those from Latin America at all.
Also I tell people the Middle East is also strong in KOF as a whole and from what I hear for the most part they don't get to go to SBO either, so there are a lot of gray areas basically is what I am trying to show people, they can't just crown one particular country/continent as the best when as you say there are many countries with individual talent, and even then some of them do not get to go to SBO such as the Middle East and Latin America.
So I agree with you 110%.