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As Dan is to Art of Fighting, so is Yuri to Street Fighter. Since KoF98, she has inherited at least move from Capcom's signature shotos per game albeit subtely renamed and reanimated.
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"Yuri is a disciple of Kyokugen Karate but her appearances in the KOF series are frequently as a member of the women fighters' team. Originally in KOF '94 there was no such team and production began on King Billy Big Bear as the English team. But Art of Fighting 2 was completed at that time and the designers pressed to put Yuri into KOF, replacing her with Big Bear, who was presenting various problems, for various reasons (hah, hah) concerning capacity. Enter Yuri, goodbye Billy! (A tragedy, we know) And so the originally planned team started life anew as the mighty women fighters' team." from KOF 10th anniversary website
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According to some leftover data on the home version discs, The King of Fighters XII originally would have had Mai, Yuri, King, Vice, Takuma, Hwa Jai, "Billy", a "Dark" Ash, and a KoF '98 version of Iori, as well as a boss of unknown identity. KoF XII was well-known to have been rushed through development, so these characters all obviously got the axe due to budget and time constraints. Further supporting this is the fact that all of these characters made it info KoF XIII eventually (counting the home version).
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Plotwise, King's true gender was revealed during when Ryo split her shirt open with a Koh Oh Ken, a feat that could be replicated if it was used as the final blow in AoF1. This could also be performed on Yuri in AoF2, and even followed them both to the first few editions of KoF.
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