By the way Squire, I saw some of those EVO finals on [spoiler]ign[/spoiler]. Tekken Tag Tournament 3 was pretty damn good. I got a little bit annoyed at the announcers turning it into a Korea vs US thing. Do contestants represent their countries in this tournament? I could tell they weren't too happy when the Korean guy won. They didn't sound nearly as enthused.
Eh, it's just to generate hype. Whatever it takes to give people reason to root for peeps. I remember last year at the King of Fighters 13 finals, the combatants were a korean guy and a returning mexican champ. Mexico has a history of winning at hat game constantly, so people were surprised when the korean guy won.
Myself, I generally tend to root for whoever picks my favorite characters, regardless of region. For example, I was rooting heavily for a Japanese Skullgirls player named Inuchiyo this time because he was playing my two favorite characters (ms fortune and fillia) with my favorite color pallete.
(his fight 30 seconds into the video, names are at the top.)
Of course, there are also specific big name players who I tend to root for regardless of who they pick. Yipes, Mike Z, Justin Wong, etc.