B-1: Sokolov vs. Silber

First off, Sokolov is a demon. I have no trouble reaching Silber with him, the rolling suplexes and huge Balance he comes with make for credits well spent.

He isn't, however, a strong match for the boss. Silber counters shoot attempts with this flying elbow thing, then follows up with a strike. Those two moves can eat up about half of your energy, his Balance is unaffected, and then just trying to take him down again is risky. My best guess for winning this is to counter Silber's three punch combo (tap B, then F) to get back position, then go for the Germans...but I have trouble even being close enough to him to counter the punches.

So I'm looking for some tips on how to beat Silber with Sokolov. Without consulting a move list, does Ivan even have another strike besides his low kick (tap DF while neutral) to soften Silber up with? Its starting to get irritating, kicking everyone's ass and then being crushed by Silber in about 30 seconds.

-Tech

That's really about his only strike, although you can roll df,f,uf to do the low kick into his headgrab.

I guess it's a bit of cheese but Silber doesn't have a counter for Ivan's foot grab, so that's what I use to beat him. Hold A&B (Block), press down, then forward. If you just keep pressing forward you'll knock him on his back, from which you can sometimes do a followup (depending on how fast he gets up), or after you've done the hold block, press down. Hold down advance while pressing forward and Ivan will grab his foot, sneak around behind him and you can pull his leg out from under him, and then follow with an ankle lock submission.

If Silber's balance is full, then he can shake you off his foot, but it'll cost him some of his balance meter, so keep it up and you'll start dropping him to the floor. Still a tough fight though, Silber is a beast against all the grapplers.

back when I had this game, I had the same problem, the only person I could beat silber with was ryo, but it was hard as hell even getting to him with ryo, with someone like sokolov, i could breeze thru the game easily, but then I'd get crushed by silber.