Zangief Comes Clean On Bear Fighting “I lied so you would like me”
Former Street Fighter makes tear-filled announcement after decades of falsified bear fight claims everyone knew was a lie to begin with.
MOSCOW—Russian superstar, Zangief has found himself in the spotlight after years in obscurity. The former Russian Street Fighter champion made an announcement to the press that shocked no one: All of his stories about fighting bears were complete and total lies. “Nobody believed him from the beginning,” said Russian correspondent Vladiskov Zerfinkowitz. “It was a ridiculous claim.”
Despite the obviousness of the lies, according to Zangief’s agent, Ivan Vlotsky, the fabricated stories had become an obsession for the bearded and mohawked giant. “It was eating him alive,” said Vlotsky. “He had to come clean or lose his mind. He didn’t trust any of his relationships, he didn’t know who loved him for his lies or who loved the real Zangief. He was just tired of living life behind a smokescreen.”
“I based my entire career on these lies. I even had my skin altered surgically to look like it had been slashed at by bears. I was fooling only myself. Everyone knows bears don’t slash people in perfect X shapes, and my chest hair… that’s a whole other story.”
“It breaks my heart to admit to you that the Zangief you all know as Russia’s champion has been a fiction this entire time,” Zangief said in his prepared remarks with tears in his eyes as he read from a sheet of tattered white printer paper, standing at the press podium before a room packed with Kremlin press agents. “I based my entire career on these lies. I even had my skin altered surgically to look like it had been slashed at by bears. I was fooling only myself. Everyone knows bears don’t slash people in perfect X shapes. And my chest hair… that’s a whole other story. But I held onto the forged fairy tale and held it up as my identity, one you all embraced. But as life has progressed I have found that life is about more than being a champion, it’s about being real. So I’m being real with you, my fellow countrymen. I never fought any bears. You know as well as I do that if I had tried such a thing I would be dead in the woods. It was nothing more than a lonely, needy young fighter’s cry for attention. Please forgive me. We all have insecurities to overcome, and today I am confronting mine head on.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin had the washed up fighter detained. “He is not forgiven,” were Putin’s only remarks. Zangief is now in custody on charges of “shaming mother Russia”. His sentence will be announced later this week.
I am not a Bear. I have to confess, too. I’m a just a puny human who dreamed of having a 450 gram ursine brain with every synapse devoted to mauling and killing and eating, not necessarily in that order. I am sorry.