Wrestler appearances in other video games

Max Morgan is fairly obvious, but the others seem to be aping particular signature skills if not appearance:


lparchive.org/Live-A-Live-(by-Yapping-Eevee)/Update%2021/

Hybrid Wrestler

Another Super Famicom title that doesn't get enough love is Funaki Masakatsu Hybrid Wrestler: Tougi Denshou on the Super Famicom.
Hybrid Wrestler is the officially licensed game of the shoot fighting promotion Pancrase. The roster is:

Masakastsu Funaki (the only licensed character and co-founder of the Pancrase promotion)




While nowhere near as in-depth as Fire Pro's edit modes, Hybrid Wrestler's character edit/career mode also contains a handful of bonus head templates. Using the heads, I was



Another very early Wrestling title from 1983 that features two tag teams:

The Ricky Fighters: Ricky (Riki Choshu) & Ultra Machine (Super Strong Machine)

Vs

The Strong Bads: Mascross (Mil Mascaras) & Worly (a very overweight mixture of Road Warrior Animal, Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen)



Originally released in 1989, Champion Wrestler contains a cast of Wrestling greats including:

Rocky Garner (Stan Hansen)
Miracle Rastan (believed to be Kerry Von Erich - also starred in another Taito arcade game named Rastan)
Matterhorn Decker (Andre The Giant)
G. Samurai (in the past, I thought this was Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, but it's most likely Riki Choshu)
Nitro Punks (Road Warrior Animal)
Black Machine (Tiger Mask & Black Tiger)
Astral Bout - Sougou Kakutougi (SFC)



Predating both Hybrid Wrestler and Saikyou Takada Nobuhiko on the Super Famicom, Astral Bout is the first
officially licensed fighting game for the RINGS promotion. Beyond Akira Maeda (again, the only licensed character),
there are a number of different fighters; all classified under their own fighting style. The ones I could pick out are:

Barnov Gainer (Chris Dolman) - representing Sambo
Astral Bout 2 (SFC)



The second instalment of the Astral Bout series contained an expanded roster of combatants revolving around the RINGS, MMA,
and K-1 promotions. The Lucha Libre and Kung Fu fighting styles found previous Astral Bout game have also been removed this time
around.

The roster is:

Akira Maeda,
Duke Bryce (Dick Vrij),
Gen Kajiwara (Yoshiaki Fujiwara),
James Louis (Maurice Smith),
Kenji Asuka (Masaaki Satake),
Volk Warren (Volk Han),
Gregory "Lucky" Hawk (Lee Hasdell),

As well as the hidden boss characters:

Gargantua Blight (Gary Albright)
David Hook (Dale "Apollo" Cook)
Tetsuzan Shindoh (Mas Oyama)



Astral Bout 3 (SFC)




The third and final game in the RINGS Astral Bout trilogy on the Super Famicom. Astral Bout 3 was the first game to include more than one officially licensed
Wrestler (in 3's case, there are four licensed Japanese RINGS combatants):

Wait, so one of the fake names in Astral Bout 3 is Rob Schneider? That's funny.

I can't recall exactly, but I know RVD and Hulk Hogan voiced a pair of characters in Saints Row: The Third.

I LOVED that spot! What a cool surprise that was to play! I’d only seen They Live a short time before I played that! Thanks for putting that up!

This is such an awesome idea for a topic, thanks for starting it and pumping out all of this info! 😁

Thank you, Bakfu. Eventually, we'll have to make all of these inspirations in Fire Pro World!

I always thought Marduk was closer to Bob Sapp.

Sapp was huge in Japan in the early 2000's, large stature, competed for K-1, WRESTLE-1 and other promotions,
and had his trademark "GAHHHH!" battle cry.


Tekken



Armor King (Black Tiger Mask). Eddie Guerrero wrestled as Black Tiger II and is the rival of Tiger Mask.

In the Tekken universe, the first Armor King served as a rival to King I.



Lei Wulong is Jackie Chan. Lei's depictions throughout the Tekken series have paid tribute to a variety
of Chan's classic films and signature moves.



Additionally, Tekken's Mokujin was lifted from the 1976 movie "Shaolin Wooden Men" which also featured Jackie Chan.

 

Marshall and Forest Law are based on Bruce Lee.

Some would argue that Forest Law is a reference to Bruce's son Brandon Lee.



Feng Wei was inspired by Jet Li.



Raven was inspired by Wesley Snipe's performance in Blade.



1994 also saw the inclusion of another Terminator character. Tekken's Jack.

Just like T-800 series, Jack's number would increase with every Tekken.