15 Best Wrestling Games Of All Time
5. WWE SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth
The less said about 2001's SmackDown: Just Bring It, the better. That game failed to launch the series on PS2 properly, meaning fans had to wait until 2002's Shut Your Mouth to get a proper next-gen WWF/WWE title. SYM was to JBI what 2K22 would be to 2K20 in the future. If anything, it was even better than that. THQ and Yuke's made amends big time back in '02.
Gameplay was still fast, but definitely less arcade-y than it had been before. Wrestlers actually sold moves for a little longer than 0.2 seconds, and the painfully short Season Mode from before was lengthened to two full years of meaty WWE storytelling. It's still one of the best story modes any wrestling game has ever had, and it's amazing to think the developers made it even better 12 months later.
More on that to come, which won't surprise anyone.
Remember that point about being fair to every kind of wrestling game and limiting the number of similar entries from a series? Yeah, that goes out the window when it comes to Shut Your Mouth. This game deserves a lot more praise than it gets next to its successor. It was the first one which felt like an accurate reflection of the weekly TV product fans were watching in real life.
Little touches, like the new Draft kicking off Seasons and lower-tier wrestlers starting on Sunday Night Heat rather than Raw or SmackDown, added loads to the immersive feel. Silliness was also still a part of the gameplay, and that made multiplayer matches even more of a laugh.
It's only right to give this game some flowers.