Wrestling video games have a wide variety. It’s not just about annual licensed stuff! And to find the craziest ones, you can always count on the Japanese devs. So we have selected a few Japanese titles — some of these only came out in Japan — to see how far wrestling games (and the muscles) evolved in the last 25 years.
Champion Pro Wrestling (1985 – MSX / SG-1000)
Tag Team Wrestling (1986 – NES / C64)
Cutie Suzuki No Ringside Angel (1990 – Sega Genesis)
Wrestle War (1991 – Sega Genesis)
3 Count Bout (1993 – Neo Geo)
Saturday Night Slam Masters (1994 – SNES / Sega Genesis)
Jikkyou Power Pro Wrestling ’96: Max Voltage (1996 – Super Famicom)
Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 (1997 – Nintendo 64)
Big Bang Pro Wrestling (2000 – Neo Geo Pocket colour)
King of Colosseum Red / Green (2002 / 2003 – PlayStation 2)
Rumble Roses (2004 – PlayStation 2)
Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring (2010 – PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360)
Which Japanese pro wrestling game would you pick as a good-looking one or as your favourite one? You can post them with images in the comments below.
Sources: GamingHistorySource, Polaventris, sakuraba1982, YouBigNonce, HardcoreGaming101, gamervision, fifkx, AmitDabydeen, Gamefaqs, Konami, Slang
Giant gram for dreamcast was awesome, best wrestling game I’ve ever played.
Oh man, thanks Gergo! You just reminded me of one of my all time favorite games that i had completely forgotten about! Saturday Night Slam Masters was the bomb!!! #nostalgia
Fire Pro Wrestling has always been one of my favourites.
Also, Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring is not a Japanese wrestling game by any definition. It was made by a Mexican company, and features wrestlers from AAA, a Mexican wrestling company.
Fire Pro Wrestling D all the way, not so much a wrestling game but a wrestling simulator, you could fully customise your own wrestler and then program their style so the computer would play them the way you would.