Miguel Caballero Rojo (ミゲル・カバジェロ・ロホ Migeru Kabajero Roho?) is a character in the Tekken series first introduced in Tekken 6. He is a short-tempered and violent Spaniard who vowed revenge against Jin Kazama for indirectly murdering his sister, and has proven to be one of the more popular newcomers to the Tekken series.
Biography
Personality
Miguel is a rather blood-thirsty and rebellious character, whose reckless nature can be seen as both his weakness and his strength.
Miguel is depicted as an undisciplined Spaniard with a very intense passion for fighting, which often brought him into conflict with others. Despite being born into a conservative family, his wild and unruly nature made him the black sheep.
Despite his negative side, Miguel is shown to be capable of love, especially in the case of his sister, whom he grew to trust and treasure. However, Miguel’s extremely over-protective concern for his sister made him consider killing his future brother-in-law, though he decides against it for the sake of her happiness. But, once his sister is killed in a bombing raid by the Mishima Zaibatsu ordered by Jin Kazama, Miguel finally shows his vengeful side and rages at her killer. This rage is then also seen in his ending in Tekken 6.
Appearance
Miguel is a muscular tan-skinned brawler who has brown curly hair, a light unshaven beard, thick brown eyebrows and light brown eyes. His default outfit (in Tekken 6) resembles a typical bullfighter's outfit.
Outfits
Main Article: Miguel Caballero Rojo/Outfits
In Tekken Tag Tournament 2, he wears an unbuttoned reddish-orange button shirt with a large red bull amid a yellow design on the back, green pants fastened with a black belt and revealing his boxers, which have the word "Luchador" written on them, and black shoes. He also wears a silver necklace, a bracelet on his right hand and black gloves.
His new outfit in Tekken 7: Fated Retribution can be considered a mixture of traditional formal wear, which his Tekken 6 outfit evoked, and more streetwise fashion, which his Tag 2 outfit evoked. He now wears a formal shirt with pinstripe pants and black boots, while sporting a pair of brass knuckles and a burgundy jacket with skull insignias adorning the arms and a fur collar. This creates the visage of a high-class gangster.
Story
Tekken 6
Despising the thought of having his life in the hands of other people, Miguel sought to live it on his own. Even after being raised by strict parents, his bloodthirsty personality found him starting fights with people around him and caused him to be seen as a rebel.
Countless arguments with his parents had forced Miguel to leave home at the age of 15, but he soon found sanctuary at a bar he visited often. He trusted no one except his kind-hearted sister whom he cared about more than anyone.
She visited him secretly without their parents knowing about it. Sometime later, Miguel’s sister told him that she was going to get married. Miguel, being outraged by this, thought of killing her fiance, but, not wanting to break his dear sister's heart, Miguel decides against it.
On the day of the wedding, Miguel watched the ceremony from outside of the church, not wanting to be seen by his parents. Under the clear blue sky, almost as if it was a blessing, a line of planes passed by the wedding.
Just a moment later, a blazing inferno covered the scene. Miguel was blown away, and although he was in great pain and almost collapsed, Miguel tried desperately to look for his sister inside the remains of the church.
Later on, Miguel found her, already dead and with her wedding dress soaked in blood.
Sometime after, Miguel discovered that the air raid that killed his sister was ordered by the Mishima Zaibatsu and, with lust for vengeance, he vowed to get revenge on the Zaibatsu’s leader, Jin Kazama.
Tekken 6 Miguel ending
Miguel ending in tekken 6
Ending Description: Jin Kazama is about to take off in a helicopter, when Miguel is seen rushing towards him. Tekken Force soldiers try to stop Miguel but he defeats every soldier that stands in his way with either a single punch or kick.
Jin Kazama takes off and Miguel tries to grab onto the flying helicopter. He, unfortunately, fails at exacting his revenge. He shouts in frustration as Jin Kazama, the person who killed his sister, escapes unscathed.
Tekken 7
TEKKEN 7 - Miguel Rojo Ending & Intro (TEKKEN 7 Character Endings)
After losing his sister in an airstrike ordered by the Mishima Zaibatsu under the direction of Jin Kazama, Miguel Caballero Rojo devoted his life to seeking revenge. However, when Jin suddenly vanishes without a trace, Miguel's life purpose to kill him disappears along with him.
From that point forward, Miguel began to wander like a specter from battle-torn town to battle-torn town. One day, as he ambled through rows of dilapidated buildings, he stumbled across a strangely familiar hooded man. There in front of him was none other than his sworn enemy, Jin.
Consumed by both euphoria and rage, Miguel becomes frenzied and goes in for the kill.
Ending Description: After defeating Jin, Miguel angrily remarks that Jin doesn't recognize him. He then delivers a barrage of punches to Jin's face, shouting that his sister was killed by the Mishima Zaibatsu. Jin tells Miguel to finish him off. Miguel, noticing Jin's lifeless demeanor, decides to spare him, but only because Jin has not suffered enough to deserve death; not until Jin's life is filled with hope, will he kill his sister's murderer.
Other Appearances
Tekken 2010 Movie
Miguel appeared in the 2010 live-action film Tekken, where he is portrayed by Roger Huerta. He is the only Tekken 6 character to appear in the film, and is renamed "Miguel Rojo". He participates in the Iron Fist tournament and faces Jin Kazama. Despite holding his own rather formidably, he is defeated by Jin when he crushes his leg and is beaten unmercifully, nearly killing him.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Miguel appears as a playable character in Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Miguel's Arcade Ending
Ending Description: Miguel is seen beating up various thugs at once in an alleyway. As he defeats two, he corners the last one, intending to give him a beating as well. However, a girl comes in and protects the last thug while looking at Miguel. Miguel looks into the girl's eyes and is reminded of when his sister was killed because of Jin (the same scene that was played in Tekken 6's opening) and releases his grip from the thug. Miguel then turns around and kicks the floor in frustration.
Tekken Revolution
Miguel appears in Tekken Revolution as one of the playable characters.
Gameplay
Miguel is a character with a very strong offensive approach. He can deal high damage and has access to good strings, a special throw that puts him in advantage, and a surprisingly good mix-up game. He can cancel certain attacks into his Savage stance, which has a multitude of attacks that can deal with multiple situations offensively or defensively. Miguel, however, is a bit on the slow side, and has to keep his opponent in check with offense in order to keep the momentum. The lack of a proper "get off me" move, unless in Savage stance, hurts Miguel, as all his options have a bit of start up time. Players who want to master Miguel must be equipped with the ability to rush down but also have a defensive back up in case they are on the receiving end of pressure.
Fighting Style
Namco stated that Miguel has no formal martial arts training and that he does not use or follow any established style or discipline. Instead, he brawls his way out of any fight, making use of his overwhelming strength and raw muscle-power, similar to that of Craig Marduk. His self-made "style" confuses and disorientates opponents with wild, powerful blows.
His moves consist of no-holds-barred, underhand techniques such as devastating haymakers, vicious body-checks, brutal headbutts and splitting leg swipes. His lack of any formal training is most visible during his grabs, in which he is usually depicted dishing out completely random strikes and throws with no real sense of coordination. Due to his size, Miguel is a bit on the slow side, and is often a huge target. However, Miguel's kick-coordination is surprisingly flexible and well-disciplined for a man with no formal training.
Tekken developer and executive producer of Tekken 6, Katsuhiro Harada, describes Miguel as "a brawler from Spain".[1] Unlike many of the other fighters, Miguel is no martial artist. He appears to be very overconfident of his fighting abilities, though he has never taken any formal martial arts training.
One of his key moves is very similar to Twin Pistons, but it starts with his right hand (d/f+2,1), is slower, and is more unsafe.
Quotes
Character Relationships
- Miguel's Sister - His sister, who Miguel loved dearly. Her death becomes Miguel's reason to enter the sixth tournament.
- Jin Kazama - The man responsible for his sister's death. Miguel has sworn revenge for this and is determined to hunt him down. He eventually confronts him in Tekken 7 and defeats him, but he reluctantly spares Jin after desiring to kill him once Jin's life is filled with hope.
- Hwoarang - His ally in the Scenario Campaign story.
- Baek Doo San - His ally in the Scenario Campaign story.
- Bob - His rival in the Online Tekken Comic (non-canon).
- Feng Wei - His tag partner in the arcade version opening in Tekken Tag Tournament 2(non-canon).
- Heihachi Mishima - He blamed Heihachi for starting the Mishima family feud, and, as a result, being indirectly responsible for the war and "all this evil" as well, in the Scenario Campaign.
Trivia
General:
- "Caballero Rojo" means "Red Knight" or "Red Gentleman" in Spanish.
- In Tekken 6 / Bloodline Rebellion, Miguel speaks English with subtitles, while in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Tekken Revolution, and Tekken 7 / Fated Retribution, Miguel speaks Spanish.
- He seems somewhat devout about his religion (presumably Catholicism), as in one of his win poses, he'll state he regrets the fight, as if he's just had a confession.
- Although it is not confirmed, it is possible that his parents and brother-in-law died in the bombing raid that killed his sister as well, seeing how, unlike Miguel, they were also directly at the wedding ceremony.
Tekken 6 and Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion:
- In the Arena mode, Kazuya Mishima becomes his sub-boss, rather than Jin Kazama, even though Miguel doesn't explicitly hate the G Corporation. This is due to Jin being in Miguel's ending.
- In the Scenario Campaign mode, Miguel is a boss at the South Bay Warehouse stage. Also, Miguel, Baek Doo San and Hwoarang lead a "Resistance" to fight against Jin and the Mishima Zaibatsu.
- In his Scenario mode dialogues, he often makes references to bullfighting and jokingly calls himself a "matador". He also often mentions religious concepts like God and sin and also his love for brawling.
- Miguel can be customized to resemble John Rambo from the Rambo film series (Shirtless and Camo tank-top), El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) from El Mariachi, Dante and Nero from the Devil May Cry series, The Undertaker from WWE, and Leon S. Kennedy from the Resident Evil series.
- Miguel has a special pre-fight animation, which will only be shown before fighting Jin Kazama. In it, he says "This hatred I bear is for you, and you alone." whilst passionately pointing his index finger towards Jin.
- Before Tekken 7, Miguel was also the only character with a special intro like this.
- This intro also returned for Tekken 7, where it is now re-voice acted in Spanish, but the unique animation is gone, and it is now only seen in his Character Episode and trailer for some reason.
- Miguel's "I...wish I could stay, but I've got things to do." winpose is similar to Lee Chaolan's "You need to fight with more class." winpose, except that Miguel's doesn't show the downed opponent.
- Miguel is one of two characters, the other being Azazel, who speaks English and has subtitles.
- He now wears his new primary outfit instead of the bullfighter suit.
- The reason that Miguel wears a new outfit is because Katsuhiro Harada himself disliked the idea that Miguel wears a "cliché" matador suit. In fact, many Spanish fans criticized this point of the character, to which Harada himself apologized, and promised that in the new Tekken game (Tekken Tag Tournament 2), Miguel would wear something more "normal".[2]
- Miguel's Tekken Tag Tournament 2 primary outfit (minus the fingerless gloves and extra silver bracelets) bears a minor resemblance to the outfit worn by Mexican soap opera actor Eduardo Verastegui during Jennifer Lopez's music video, Ain't It Funny, where he portrays Lopez's love interest.
- From Tekken Tag Tournament 2 onward, Miguel speaks in his native Spanish language.
Tekken 7 and Tekken 7: Fated Retribution:
- The background music for his character trailer is from the Fireworks Over Barcelona stage from Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Miguel was also the only character before the Season 2 DLC to have the music of his reveal trailer be from an earlier Tekken game.
- His new outfit's color scheme and appearance are almost identical to Captain Marvelous of Super Sentai's Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
- Miguel has a new pre-fight and a new victory animation in this game. In the pre-fight one, he is seen taking a single bite from an apple and throwing it away while walking towards his opponent. In the victory one, he angrily says "Hey, What are you looking at?" at the screen/cameraman before aiming a strong punch at the screen, breaking it.
- His Rage Art is based on his ending in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, but has minor changes - while he punches his off-screen opponent several times, the camera shows Miguel in the first-person view of his opponent, before he taunts his opponent and delivers the finishing blow.
- If his Rage Art is used against Alisa or Jack, his punches cause the opponent's first-person view to have an effect as if glitching out.
- Miguel's featured act in Story Mode is The Vengeful Spaniard which references his main appearances in the game to avenge his sister's death.
- His other featured act within the live events called Fightin' Words that references his pre-fight quotes before facing his opponents.
Other:
- In Tekken: Blood Vengeance, Miguel's dossier is briefly seen when Anna Williams opens a file containing dossiers of various persons of interest.
- Cracker Jack from the Street Fighter EX series also wields brass knuckles identical to Miguel's in his latest appearance of the game Fighting EX Layer.
- He, Jack, Yoshimitsu, Kuma II and Panda are the only characters who have one-hit KO moves.
- In Tekken: Live Action, Miguel has a tattoo and is also a zapota specialist.
- Miguel shares his Spanish VA with Carlos Oliveira in the Resident Evil 3 Remake Spanish version.
- Carlos also bears a striking resemblance to Miguel in terms of physical build as players can customize a shirtless version of Carlos via PC mod to share Miguel's build and chest hair.