...Rush down?  I mean, this is my opinion, but I've been trapped for a while by some Rufus players. Did Focuses and wake ups and all. Just was a difficult time. I manage to pull out some wins, but hot damn he is annoying. Taking up alot of screen with his ugly hairdo and rosey cheeks. LOL!

Maybe you haven't adjusted to his move set yet. Since everything does require a lot of time, just keep playing more and I'm sure you won't have much problems later on.

I wouldn't hazard to say Rufus has the best Rush Down game in IV. He's got a decent set of moves that work well with a player that likes going on the offensive, but so does Ken, Ryu, Gouken, Akuma, Cammy, Fei, Rog, etc, etc, etc, etc. Point being, the entire cast has the ability to go on the offensive but it's up to the player to decide whether or not to play that way. Even characters like Dhalsim and Akuma that have very VERY strong keep away abilities can get up in your face and make you have a bad day if that's the way the player using them chooses to play.

That being said, for a very offensive Rufus in particular there are a couple of general things you can do to help ease the burden of his onslaught, regardless of which character you choose. First and foremost is the Focus Attack. I realize you said you've tried it, however you may or may not be aware of this, but a Level 1 Focus Attack CAN crumple your opponent on hit, which then leads into free combos. How, you ask? As a counter hit. If your L1 FA hits your opponent during the active frames of his own attack (ie, while he's swinging away) it will crumple him. I mention this specifically here because a lot of Rufus players like to abuse his dive kick (and why shouldn't they, it's an awesome move). Basically if you see a Rufus using the dive kick recklessly, hit your focus attack when he jumps up and as he hits you let go. Generally, depending on how high in the air he was when he hit your hyper armor, he'll be transitioning to his landing frames when the counter hits, causing a crumple on the ground, which will then lead to you punishing him (make sure you know your characters combos for that situation). This technique takes some work since it's an on reaction counter. You may find yourself doing it too early and causing the FA to hit Rufus in the air (causing him to go flying), or too late and allowing Rufus to get in a second hit before you let go, breaking your FA and putting you in a place you don't want to be. Once you get a feel for it you'll notice those dive kicks aren't quite as imposing as they used to be. Also, as a small side note, you will find that a lot of very skilled Rufus players will not do dive kicks from very high up in the air. Most do them when they are lower, almost like "hop dive kicks," because they are much harder to deal with on reaction.

Another general technique is to use is backdash. Backdash is your friend in SFIV. Probably your best friend. You can get out of a lot of hairy situations with backdash because of the invincibility frames it has. It won't always work, mind you. There are times when you'll try to backdash and just screw up the timing or even end up backdashing right into another attack, but if you recognize a pattern in your opponents strings and see a point where he is ending on a single attack or there is a break in his string, you can backdash out of there.

Now beyond those two very general and basic techniques, I'd suggest you head on over to SRK (www.shoryuken.com), Eventhubs (www.eventhubs.com), or some other fighting game mecha and read up on how your specific character counters Rufus.

Solid info Aaron. Nice. Thanks.

Yes, he does have the best rushdown.  But it's like you said.  He's the fattest character in the game!  It should be around to get around him, don't you think? =)