Champion Wrestler

Champion Wrestler is one of the many sport arcade games developed by Taito Corporation. This title was originally published in 1989 for coin-operated arcade machines before a digital version was republished in 2009 on Wii Virtual Console. Taito is a Japanese video game developer and other sports arcade game titles from them include Basketball (1974), Pro Hockey (1973), Ball Park (1974), Table Football (1977) and Field Goal 1979.

Champion Wrestler features a ring with wrestlers and a referee standing in the middle and a cheering crowd outside the ring. Before each round commences, you have eight heavyweight champion/wrestlers to choose from. Your choices are Rocky Garner, Miracle Rastan, Matterhorn Decker, The Samurai, Nitro Panks, Black Machine, Jimmy Carbon and Cobra Blood Joe. A 2D picture and biodata of each wrestler are displayed and you can choose your champion based on his weight, height, favourite techniques, power, durability, speed and resilience. Just before the ring comes back in view, you and your opponent’s player are both displayed on the screen to show you who you are up against.

The game rounds start with each player coming out of the pit with their coach/manager. During the game rounds, you are to control your wrestler who tries to defeat the opponent in the ring by using different techniques and smackdowns. As each wrestler takes a hit, the life bar at the top of the page decreases from green to yellow and finally the critical stage which is displayed in red. Your life and power bar will increase again when you stop taking hits for some time, this happens to your opponent as well no matter how many hits he has taken from you.

To win this game, you have to launch several attacks, special techniques and finally pin him down till the referee counts to 3. The opponent can also give up or tap out while you launch a smackdown on him. This will also mean you won the game and you can proceed to the next round. Another way you can beat your opponent is by throwing him out of the ring if he doesn’t get back into the ring in three seconds, he loses the game. When you beat the opponent in the first round, you will proceed to the next round, where you will fight another wrestler. You also have the option of changing your wrestler before the next game. As you advance in rounds, you earn more points and you get to fight stronger opponents. When you win the game, you get points which are shown on the screen as the winner’s fight money. You can also get points when you lose a game if you manage to land some hits on your opponent.

In some of the game rounds which can also be called the cage match round, a barrier goes all the way up which prevents the wrestlers from falling off the ring or bouncing off the ropes. When a wrestler tries to bounce off the ropes or he is thrown at it by the opponent, it counts as a hit and decreases his life bar. When the match time runs out without any of the players winning the game, the winner is determined by whose life and power bar is the strongest.
This game allows a minimum of one player or a maximum of four to play simultaneously. Four players can play by splitting into two teams and play against each other while two players can either oppose each other or team up against the computer. If you are playing alone, then you can only wrestle with a player controlled by the computer in a one-on-one game.

The soundtrack is a piece of static or mono music in the backgrounds with the sound of the wrestlers getting hit or throwing a punch. Champion Wrestler is an uncomplicated and interesting arcade game to play. Half the time, your punches and kicks will seem like they missed the opponent because of the outdated design of the game, but the characters and their stunts are what brings the fun to screen. For a 1989 arcade game, Taito did a good job trying to make the fight more realistic, with the manager throwing his staff into the ring, heavyweight wrestlers doing special smackdowns and the constant running from one side of the ring to another. All these are typical WWE moves which are portrayed fairly by the game developer.