'For Me? It Was A Tuesday': 'Street Fighter's 2026's Silliest Callback, Explained

Street Fighter (2026) has a lot of fun with callouts to the source material, but the funniest one is actually pulled from one of the previous adaptations. The new film is unapologetically goofy in its references to the original video games, from lore dumps and distinctive moves to sly allusions.  It’s a lot of fun for fans of the franchise, without being too distracting for broader audiences.

The best Easter egg, though, has nothing to do with the games. Instead, it’s a reimagining of one of the most memorable scenes from the most prominent Street Fighter movie. More than that, it’s also one of the script’s best little moments of characterization. 

'Street Fighter' 2026's Best Callback Is About M. Bison

While the new film is largely rooted in adapting the tone and style of the video games, it also takes campy cues from Street Fighter (1994). That film, which embraced a similarly broad and over-the-top tone, is now something of a cult classic precisely for its strange touches and full commitment to an absurd cartoonish world. This extends to M. Bison, played by Raul Julia. Best known for dramas like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Presumed Innocent (1990), Julia took on more family-friendly fare in the 1990s, like The Addams Family (1991). His last performance was in 1994’s Street Fighter as M. Bison in a performance that leans so heavily into the over-the-top nature of the character that it becomes strangely magnetic and entertaining. 

One of his most famous lines comes after Chun-Li explains her motivations, revealing he murdered her father. Bison, at this point having put on a silk robe and made them cocktails, notes that while this is clearly one of the most important days of her life, for him, “It was a Tuesday.” It’s a casual dismissal of his terrible crimes as insignificant moments in his life, a perfectly succinct way to get the character across.

Late Night with the Devil (2024) star David Dastmalchian does something similar to Julia in his take on Bison, clearly relishing in playing the purposefully one-note and theatrical character. He even gets his own variant of the line when Chun-Li confronts them, although his delivery comes during a fight instead of just as an insult. 

M. Bison Is Ridiculous, and That's Why the Line Works

“It was a Tuesday” is the kind of line that makes perfect sense as a connecting point between the two Bison performances, as they lean heavily into the same absurdity of the character. M. Bison is one of the most enduring villains in the Street Fighter franchise and is indicative of its strange hodgepodge of inspirations, serving as a stand-in for any number of despots or super villains. He’s enhanced with Psycho Power and levitates around in a cape. 

In a world of over-the-top and bombastic characters, Bison is the most openly theatrical and ridiculous, and because of that, it works. He makes the other strange characters feel normal by comparison, giving the universe a larger-than-life villain to face off with. He throws scientists around and demands power boosts at the expense of human test subjects, the kind of uncomplicated evil that fits into this world. M. Bison’s line to Chun-Li is perfectly indicative of that in both iterations. It’s more than just an Easter egg in the new film, but a consistent character-defining moment that underscores the kind of evil the heroes are dealing with in 2026’s Street Fighter.