Liang Ben Zhou comes from a long line of fighters with a proud tradition. His family owns a dojo in western Viridian City located next to a restaurant called Spinda's Palace, operated by his mother, not surprisingly a spinda.

When Liang was a young tyrogue he suffered a concussion during training. Although he suffered from some dizzy spells over the next few days he didn't show any sign of long-term injury, and he and his parents quickly forgot about it, throwing Liang back into his training. Unfortunately it was discovered after he evolved into a hitmontop that he had suffered an injury to the part of his brain that would be responsible for keeping him from becoming dizzy and disoriented when spinning around quickly as hitmontops are given to do.

Faced with a difficult problem that medical solutions failed to fix, Liang's father turned to an old friend of the family, Grand Master Huangfeili. The old master met with the young hitmontop, took only a few minutes to evaluate him, and quickly agreed to train him, taking him on as a student alongside Nicole Blackclaw. Unable to fix Liang's problem, the wise master opted to turn the hitmontop's weakness into his strength. Liang was specially trained in the exotic art of drunken boxing and learned how to use his dizzy, staggering movements to his advantage.

Liang and Nicole trained together for years under the old master, becoming friends, rivals, and almost like brother and sister. They planned to enroll in the Poke-Combat Academy of Higher Learning together but unfortunately Liang's father took ill before he could do so. Liang was forced to leave Master Huangfeili's tutelage in order to take care of his family dojo and tend to his ailing father, and instead enrolled in a conventional school to remain closer to home, keeping up his martial studies on his own.

Recently however Liang's father has made a great recovery and his younger siblings have grown old enough to help with the dojo. This has left Liang free to transfer to the P.C.A. and return to studying the fighting arts under the aged master. He has also reunited with his old training partner but has been taken aback somewhat by her change in attitude since he last knew her. It's an attitude he hopes to get to the bottom of and correct.

Liang is outgoing and friendly, if a bit awkward sometimes. He has a strong sense of what is fair and honorable and will not hesitate to stand up for either. He also enjoys a good battle and is fond of challenging others who fight with an exotic or unusual style, often to a "no powers" battle of pure martial arts ability. In a battle Liang is a highly skilled fighter, trained by one of the best in the world. Drawing upon his training and the abilities inherited from his spinda mother, he actually fights better when he becomes dizzy and disoriented, and his fighting style is very difficult to defend against.