Tier 5
Guy and Cody: Hard to tier, IMHO. They can beat Sodom and Rolento,
obviously. They can also beat a whole bunch of the Mad Gear gang, but it's
important to remember that they did not fight through Final Fight alone and
also that it's wholly possible and likely that the SF universe follows the
laws of anime (IE, any generic bad guy is really weak and easy to beat up
by most any semi-important character), thus the fact that they can take out
most of the Mad Gear scrubs isn't a very good gauge, either. Guy, even
though he is a Bushin master, is still equal to Cody even during SFA3,
though, so we at least know they are on the same tier. But storyline-wise,
neither has ever really gone up against any of the really high tier Street
Fighter characters, so this is the best guess we can get to place them
unless more *comparative* info ever comes in. Actually, though, after
getting Juni's official power ratings that she scans in SFA3, I'm thinking
that Sodom, Rolento, Guy, and Cody are probably a lot higher than this.
Probably around Charlie's level during SFA3, actually. And... Cody being
below Hugo doesn't seem right.
Adon: Strong enough to beat Sagat in SFA2. Sagat may have been unfocused,
but he was still powerful. There aren't many other matches to use to tier
him with hard core certainty, but beating SFA2 Sagat and being the new Muy
Thai Emperor should be enough to give him this tier.
Sakura: She's better than Karin. It's officially stated that her chi
manipulation is equal to Ken's during SFA3. The girl's ridiculously gifted
and able to learn Ryu's moves just by watching him. If Sakura continued
training on and on after SFA3, she could really be something.
Unfortunately, since SFA3 was so incredibly long ago, and Sakura's future
still highly up in the air (highschool is really a bit too early in life to
get that hard a bead on one's future, I think), the tier can really only go
by her last seen position (unlike Sagat, where it's shown that he's still
in the game after SF2 and his determination to stay on level with Ryu is
further emphasized). Anyways, Chun-Li is the strongest woman in the world
so Sakura is below her, regardless. Oh, and judging from SFA3, she can
beat Honda, so she gets to be higher than him.
Balrog: Can kill an elephant with his bare hands. Generally among the top
fighters in Shadaloo (not sure if it was officially stated, though I think
it was... it's implied, at least) and thus higher than the Dolls. Oh, and
judging by SFA3, he beat Birdie. Probably weaker than Vega, so he
goes here.
Cammy: She's better than the other Dolls but weaker than Vega. ...wow,
that was easy.
Zangief: A bit hard to tier, but being implied to be Russia's greatest
warrior should account for something. He's better than R. Mika (it seems
he goes easy on her in SFA3 and all), and R. Mika is most likely better
than Dan, so Zangief gets to go here. On a random note, I have no clue
where Haggar (or any other Final Fight exclusive character, really) fits
in, here. Even Cody and Guy, who weren't exclusive to only Final Fight,
are hard to tier. Can't even decide whether or not Haggar is on Zangief's
level because the two never even met in person, after all, so there's no
interaction to use to compare
T. Hawk: He can beat (and most likely actually has beaten) the Doll
Noembelu. ...another easy one.
Dhalsim: Loses to Ryu (at least, implied by one of Ryu's SF3 win quotes).
A bit hard to tier, but he's been going around doing lots of good things
for the world and has that fire power granted by the gods and such. There
might be more that I should poke Saiki for, but overall, this is a pretty
good guess, I think. He retired from fighting after SF2, by the way.
Alex: Alex is better than all the other SF3 characters (besides heavy
hitters like Ryu and Oro, who he never had to fight) as can be seen by him
winning the SF3 tournament. However, he's still not really that high up
since Ryu beat him VERY easily in Third Strike. Thus he only gets to be a
tier higher than where the other SF3 characters go. He's below Hugo even
though they never fought because Hugo actually put up a fight against Ryu.