Unsung Heroes of the FGC: Alex “Cookie” Shaw

By on May 26, 2021

alex "cookie" shaw, apparently in the middle of having his mind blown at combo breaker
Photo used with the kind permission of Robert Paul @tempusrob

Unsung Heroes is our series about the many members of the Fighting Game Community who work behind the scenes to make our community a vibrant, positive, exciting place to be. If you would like to submit your own Unsung Heroes, contact us here or @toptiergg.


If you were a fighting game fan in Chicago at the end of May 2019, odds are that you attended Combo Breaker, the area’s largest tournament. From the gigantic main stage to the lengthy list of international players who flew in to compete, everything about Combo Breaker 2019 said “big.”

Or, well, almost everything. Weaving his way through the massive crowds was one Alex “Cookie” Shaw. Although his main gig in the Fighting Game Community is commentary, Cookie also contributed in a different way that weekend. “Because I’m small and very quick,” he explains, “I would run around and try to fetch all the players to come up to the stream setup.”

In the increasingly growth-oriented FGC, it can be all too easy to take smaller events, franchises, cities, and people for granted. Do that, though, and you’ll miss out on what fighting games are really about. Without local events, there would be no majors like Combo Breaker. Without niche scenes, there would be nowhere for new players, event workers, or developers to cut their teeth. And without unsung heroes like Cookie, there wouldn’t be an FGC at all.

Sunshine And Sunset

Growing up in New England, Cookie’s first fighting game was Super Smash Bros. Melee, in which he played Captain Falcon and Sheik, two characters who matched his light, agile frame. Even after moving to Florida in 2017, he stuck to the same archetype, picking up Cammy in Street Fighter V. But the newly minted resident of the Sunshine State was never destined for competitive greatness. He had a deeper calling.

“When I found fighting games,” he recalls, “immediately I got the sense of family. These people do it because they like these games, they like the passion, they like hanging out with people…It kinda clung to me, all that passion.” From Melee and SFV to Dead or Alive 5 and The King of Fighters XIV, Cookie found himself dipping deeper and deeper into the community, making new friends and riding the energy of the room. “I enjoyed that so much that I wanted to keep it going,” he says. When one of his mentors in the DOA5 scene suggested that he channel his energy into commentary, it was a perfect match: he found an Under-Night event that needed a voice, grabbed himself a microphone, and fell in love so hard that he eventually switched his major to sportscasting.

Yet even though he studied to be a telecaster, he didn’t immediately jump onto the esports bandwagon. Instead, he allowed his affinity for Under-Night to guide him. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he ran a local event of his own called Project Sunset; he pitched in at another Floridian event called Juicy Game Night; and he traveled across the country to run brackets and do commentary for Under-Night. “I like to help in any way I can for the games I like,” he says. It doesn’t matter if those games are small. They’re worth it.

It’s Not The Size Of The Dog In The Fight(ing Game)

Having seen such a wide range of what the FGC has to offer, Cookie understands that everyone matters. At Project Sunset, he would approach onlookers and invite them to play some casual sets. As an event organizer, he wanted to “attract as many casual players as possible,” both to keep his own scene active and to feed into grander events like Combo Breaker. And in his own work as a commentator, he found out firsthand why solidarity matters more than size.

After working for three years to establish himself as a go-to voice for Under-Night, Cookie was tapped to provide in-house commentary for the game’s finals at the Evolution Championship Series. But a few months later at CEOtaku, he was only assigned to pools. After hearing the news, “I sat there and I went, ‘Am I really not worth it?’” It was his friends who picked him up. “Just because one event doesn’t put you at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean that your career is over or you’re not worth it,” they told him. That, more than anything else, is what the FGC means to him: whether or not you’re a superstar, you’re family.

Little Big Planet

Just like the rest of the FGC, Cookie is raring to get back into the swing of things now that vaccinations are on the rise. He misses his local events fiercely, he dreams about tipping back some Modelos with his King of Fighters friends, and he wants to keep pushing towards his goal of commentating a top-eight bracket on stream.

With his skills and support system, it shouldn’t be too long before he reaches that plateau. But even if this isn’t the year when he breaks through, he’ll always have people in the community who understand that, sometimes, it’s the little people who make the biggest difference.

To support Cookie, follow him on Twitter and Twitch.


Eli Horowitz is a writer who lives in Pittsburgh, PA. His FGC novel, Bodied, is for sale here, and he posts tons of FGC memes, tournament updates, and more on Twitter. He stands six foot three, so he thinks pretty much everyone is short.



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