Before becoming the face of fighting games, Sajam got his start by dabbling in Street Fighter 4 and other post-2009 era titles. During this time, he noticed a distinct lack of fighting game content and guides to onboard him to the genre, and worked to fill that need himself from the start. After graduating highschool, Sajam became another socal Arcade Rat, competing heavily in both Injustice and KI, under the moniker, Steeeeeeeeeeve. During his long hours at the arcade, he was eventually noticed for both his gameplay and content creation in the genre, and was granted a seat at the commentary table. Getting into the content game early allowed Sajam to begin making enough money from his youtube channel to stop working his part time jobs after school. From this point forward, Sajam used any spare time he could find from his college education to live a double life as a hybrid competitor and commentator.
With the Street Fighter 4 esports scene growing year after year, the release of Street Fighter V brought in new opportunities, and new investors, looking to capitalize on the potential market. Sajam found himself in prime position to take his commentary career to the next level, and took the jump in 2016 to focus on it full time With his gift for gab, dedication to the craft, and a bit of luck, Sajam went from commentating the graveyard shift of online weekly events, to EVO grand finals within a year.
Sajam quickly became the most prolific commentator in the world of fighting games, with appearances in EVO grand finals across multiple titles, E-League, the Capcom Pro Tour, and Capcom Cup itself.
While his commentary career grew, Sajam made the conscious decision to grow his content brand. Unbeknownst at the time, this would eventually serve to save his career, as an internal disagreement with a member of Capcom’s production team would lead to a pause in his hiring. Even more so, soon, the world would go into lockdown due to Covid, bringing down the tournament scene, and with it, all major commentary opportunities.
During this time, Sajam further developed his unique Twitch talk show to YouTube content pipeline and style, further building his presence both in, and outside of the fighting game community. Soon his efforts got him nominated for Best Fighting Game streamer at the Streamer Awards. While he did not win the award, he leveraged this opportunity to network with larger content creators outside of the core FGC audience, with the intention of building a show which would help himself, and the FGC as a whole, break containment.
This production would culminate in the Sajam Slam, a team tournament series which pairs some of the largest content creators in the greater twitch-verse with pros from their respective fighting games. Returning to Street Fighter with commentating EVO grand finals, the success of the slam series, and a year later, securing the Fighting Game Streamer of the year award, Sajam shares his complete journey, and the secrets to his success in gaming, commentary, content creation, and growing the FGC. Please enjoy.
