Never in person but in the military, we did have a good deal of people into fighting games. They mainly liked Injustice though so I barely ever played with them. Of course, most of them were niggas. That was this one silly situation where one guy was beating everyone in the room with Raven using her projectile. Everyone cried cheap because they didn't know how to defend against it and constantly lost. I kept trying to give advice on how to do so and people got fed up with me and told me to beat the guy. I told them I've only played the game once but I'll give it a try. I had the guy down to a pixel of health on the last round before he won. Everyone was silent after realizing I wasn't full of shit when I was giving them advice. If a guy who has played the game once can nearly beat this guy that everyone was struggling with, what was their excuse?
There was another time they held a Sm4sh tourney. I used to play Project M a lot so I entered the tourney despite barely playing Sm4sh. Only 2 of the 16 people actually put up a challenge. It's just that most of the stuff I learned from PM carried over but damn is Sm4sh boring as hell. Rolling is way to safe and no momentum from ground to air is lame. I later introduced many people to Dead or Alive 5. A friend and I would play on the messdecks (same with Senran Kagura, EDF, and Tales of Berseria) and we got many people to join in. No one could beat my Hitomi/Ein though.
Now I just play fighting games online. Usually just stick to anime fighters like Arcana Heart, Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, and Nitroplus. I have yet to go to any events but I may do so since I'm in cuckfornia.