I had wanted to make my own website ever since we got a computer with Internet access, but I wasn't sure what to do one about. After seeing Johnny Hughson's Streets of Rage Online, and also seeing there were no good Final Fight sites on the net, I decided to choose that. On the 21st of December 2002, I launched Final Fight Online.

It was the first website I had ever created and I really didn't know what I was doing -I'd gotten myself an Angelfire account (the worst one available, which was free, gave you 20 megabytes of space and put at least two ads on every page) and created pages in the trial version of Easy Web Editor. I knew nothing about how to make sites work, so stuff as basic as just linking pages had to be picked up along the way. The layout was scrappy and the writing truly awful, but I kept going. In the end the Angelfire version of the site became around 40 pages large. The problem was that I was running out of space and didn't really know what to do, until I heard about Classic Gaming. They would host sites about old games for free, so it was my best bet.

I cannot remember when I submitted the site to Classic Gaming, but I think it was in either 2004 or 2005. The first time round, they didn't even reply. So I tried again and this time not only did they reply, but they accepted it! Looking back I am surprised at this because the Angelfire version was terrible, but at the time it was great news. 2005 was when the site moved to Classic Gaming. In 2006 I finally re-made the place and spruced it up considerably, with much more detail going into the character move lists, level guides and more.

Sadly Classic Gaming made a couple of moves I was never fond of. Firstly, they said you needed to put one of their ad codes on every page you upload. I spent ages doing this, but then once I'd done it about a month later I found out that they were introducing a system where an ad would be automatically placed onto any page, so that was a huge waste of my time. Secondly, they demanded you had to upload MP3 files to their awful Fileplanet service. If you thought it was difficult to use Fileplanet to get files, it's was just as bad uploading them.

But the real kicker was when Classic Gaming decided to get rid of sites like mine. Everyone knew it was happening and found new places for their sites to go, but after the deletion was done, the message above was what they left up. Rather than tell people the new URLs of where sites had been moved too, they just put that lie up and that was it. A few weeks after that, the message didn't even appear anymore. Basically a giant "screw you" to all the webmasters who had made great sites for Classic Gaming. Whilst I appreciate them for hosting my site, they really could have gone around handling this in a more professional manner.

Anyway, my other main site was hosted by Flying Omelette so I asked her if I could upload Final Fight Online to it too. She said yes, and that's where it presently is. The third host is no doubt the best, as there are no ads or stupid Fileplanet garbage. Late on in 2012 I overhauled the place again, finally putting it at the level I wanted it to be... or so I thought. In 2022, just in time for the site's 20th anniversary, I went through everything again, and this time I really think I got it right. That pretty much brings you up to date about the boring history of this site. Did I think it would make it to the 20 year mark? To be honest I never really thought about it. I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as it still seems to be the only Final Fight site on the net.