The definition of Scrub in this question comes from David Sirlin's famous article, Playing To Win
Resist the urge to rant on Sirlin... resist the urge to rant on Sirlin...
OK, with that out of the way, yes, you would be perfectly capable of developing a competitive fighting game. As long as you pay attention to what you're trying to make, rather than whether you personally like it.
Most competitive fighting games were never designed to be competitive games. Or at least, they are descended from games that were never designed that way. Take the Street Fighter combo system; that is derived entirely from a game bug, yet it is the cornerstone of competitive SF play.
Pop Quiz, hot shot: as a game designer, you are presented with your players (or if the game is still in development, testers) having found a game bug which they have exploited. This bug, when properly exploited, allows them to deal far more damage than your game design normally allowed. Which means that a move that you could punish with one hit (maybe 10% damage at most) can be punished by 30 or 40% damage instead.
What do you do? Do you remove the bug, thus eliminating the problem entirely and allowing your original vision of the game's design to show through? Or do you instead allow the bug to persist and effectively balance the game around the bug?
The real essence of this Pop Quiz isn't the answer; it's your justification behind your answer.
If you want to remove the bug, why do you want to remove it? Is allowing more punishment really that bad for the game? What is it exactly about the bug that you find objectionable?
If you want to keep the bug around, why do you want to keep it? Does it detract from the challenge, because exploiting it is too easy? Does it make the game one-dimensional? Will it always be one-dimensional, or is this simply a temporary metagame moment that will get smoothed out as people learn to deal with it?
My question is, are such elements necessary in creating a competitive fighter? What are the "gotchas" a scrub would by hindered by when designing/developing a competitive fighter?
The most vital element when creating a competitive game is this: player stratification. Good players must consistently beat weaker players. Good players must have the tools to beat weaker players. The system must have enough depth that good players are able to do things that weaker players can't, and those things must lead to victory. The use of these tools becomes what decides who is good and who is not.
Exactly how you bring this about is up to you. However, consider that competitive gamers like the feel of owning the game and the metagame. They like finding and exploiting glitches; they get off on pushing a game so far that it breaks and becomes a different game. In part because that enhances player stratification.
As a fellow "Scrub" (urge to rant rising...), the hardest thing you will have to deal with is the simple fact that competitive games are not made for you. What Sirlin derogatorily calls a "Scrub" is simply someone who does not enjoy a competitive play environment. We see the design of what the game ought to feel like, and any deviation from that is inherently antithetical to that designed purpose.
Because of that, you will constantly want to assert the purity of your original design over the organic growth of your game in development. Resist this urge. Constantly re-evaluate your design as you see the game coming into shape. Constantly remind yourself, anytime you see anything "wrong", that you are making the game for people who are not you.
At all times, you should strive to remember who the game is for. You should make decisions about what goes into the game and how it changes based on how best to serve a competitive gamer. So if a bug comes along that your "Scrub" senses tell you is unfair, evaluate it based on how it actually affects competitive play. And if it helps create useful depth of play, then you should keep it (or at least promote it to a full-fledged feature and work with the good parts).
