The part that really gets me is that he's pretty much devoted his life to them, and he still isn't good. I think that might be one of the reasons for the cope overload when he plays them. Most people who have put in the hours and years he has would be significantly better by now, but he just isn't, so it must be cheaters/frame traps/lag/the game devs.
The thing with Phil is, he likes to give the impression he's devoted himself to fighting games, but he really hasn't. If we're being really generous, there was a period of time where he was pretty devoted, but at this point, it was so long ago. Not only has a lot of time passed and the nature of fighting games has changed, but fighting games/pro gaming in general have become more popular and accessible. Phil's biggest win is because he was playing a niche version of a game that not many people cared about.
I'm not really qualified to know if Phil was actually good back in the day, but he was at least going to tournaments and playing with pros and stuff, so that's something. But it's been what...15ish years since Phil last played someone offline? Excuse the Phil-tier metaphor, but it'd kinda be like if someone played college basketball professionally, did pretty decent, but ultimately left school and spent the next 15 years drinking and gambling on mobile games. During this time, they still played a game or two every week at a local rec league, but they weren't actively practicing or working out. Compared to their college self, they aren't in the same league at all, and they certainly aren't going to hold their own against the recent stock of college players that exist now. Or those former college players from his time that went on to join professional teams and make a career for themselves.
A big thing with the majority of competitive hobbies is being involved in the community. You don't have to necessarily be the most active person yourself, but by being part of the community, you're at least learning about the meta and understanding what you need to do to improve your gameplay. Or more importantly, what other people are doing to improve their gameplay, which might hard counter your winning strategy.
To use a slightly less Phil-tier example, take chess. I remember when I was a kid, my friend knew one of those 4 or 5 turn checkmate strategies. If you know the strategy exists and how to play the game, you can pretty easily avoid these setups. Even if somehow in a professional tournament setting, an opponent was unaware of these strats and fell for them, after the first game they wouldn't fall for the same trap and would know how to play around it for the next game. Phil is basically that guy. He knows a few pretty basic, but effective methods of winning in a specific version of a fighting game, but he never really bothered to learn anything else. And unlike with chess, future versions of the fighting games have different rules/mechanics/movesets. It's certainly not all of his loses, but there's definitely a fair amount that are basically attributed to Phil not knowing what to do with pretty common playstyles/tactics that, if he were active in the community, he'd at least know in theory what he's supposed to do/what mechanics are available to help him out.
