I'm just gonna add a little bit of brain candy to the whole Megumi backstory thing:
GGXPlus Artwork went so far as to suggest Axl actually went back in Time to his original Timeline briefly to meet up with his former Street Buddies/Thug Rivals whom he had defeated in the past.
This in and of itself is a nod to games like Streets of Rage/Final Fight/Double Dragon/River City Ransom. In fact Axl's whole backstory is that he cleaned up the entirety of the slums of Cotswolds, London, England in his original era.
I-No makes a comment in Strive that she originally didn't get along with her "boyfriend" and only fell in love with him after the fact... this might be a nod to "Poison" or other female enemy characters that appeared in these various beat-em-up games.
So when Axl starts punching enemies, he starts crying while he fights in the streets and says the catchphrase "I can't get nothin' out but tears!"... which is what I-No remembers of her missing boyfriend Will (William Bruce "Axel" Rose Jr.).
Meanwhile, on Axl's side of the Paradox, Axl remembers that his girlfriend was really gentle and kind and wore long hair just how he liked her to wear it.
If Megumi Saito was related to a Japanese Martial Arts master who taught Axl Low how to fight... it might in fact be a nod to the plotline of Art of Fighting (one of SNK's founding arcade action fighting games which later fed in to games like Fatal Fury and King of Fighters).
Speaking of which, a certain Kasumi Todoh IS IN FACT the daughter of a Japanese Martial Arts Master, and she is almost always looking for her long lost father in her storylines.
So in fact, Megumi Saitou (I-No's counterpart) might very well be a reference to Kasumi Todoh from Art of Fighting 3.
