10 Best Non-WWE Wrestling Video Games Ever

7. Pro Wrestling (NES)

pro wrestling
Nintendo

It does exactly what it says on the tin. It is easy to look back at Pro Wrestling for the NES and make fun of its simplicity and lack of detail, but modern-day gaming enthusiasts must remember that the 1980s were a very different time indeed. For many, this 1986 game was an absolute champion in every single possible way.

This was a real envelope pusher, a trailblazer for all the games that were to come. Sure, it didn’t have a deep roster and the action itself wasn’t electric, but it didn’t have to be. This was a wrestling computer game that was head and shoulders above everything else, and it opened an entirely new generation of programmers and developers up to what was possible in a grappling game.

It was also extremely difficult. Sure, getting past the early stages wasn’t exactly tough, but all wrestling gamers of that age will have memories of struggling against The Great Puma, a character that many also reprised when editors and create-a-wrestlers became commonplace in future games. Easy to learn, easy to play, incredibly easy to love. Also, ‘A Winner Is You’? This is where that meme came from.

Advertisement
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.