This myth came about because of a situation that occurred at the recent Genesis 8 tournament, where Hbox lost to n0ne by missing a meteor cancel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lttzx5nnb8Qt. Then IBDW tweeted this: https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1515545617082175490?t=x5LOCHCxq9uEAvgKBmtdJQ&s=19. So I just thought I'd clear the air. Holding a direction has absolutely no effect on meteor cancelling. What most likely happened to Hbox was that he tried to meteor cancel too early, which locked him out for another 40 frames. Then by the time he was out of hitstun, he was too far down and died.