Sure there’s Super Mario Bros. and Zelda, but for my youth the greatest game from the classic 8 bit Nintendo Entertainment System was Pro Wrestling.

Pro Wrestling NES had such an impact on not only gamers but also wrestling marks.  How big?  One picture on Colt Cabana’s page led to this post.  Because of this game I thought every wrestling promotion used a twenty count when the wrestlers were outside the ring.  WWF/WWE has used a ten count.  I have watched WWE all my life.  And yet I still thought it was a 20 count, solely because of this game.

Lets look at some more love for Pro Wrestling.

4.  Starman is real!!!

From Colt Cabana’s social media streams comes this picture.  Taken at the Pro Wrestling Syndicate’s 5 Year Anniversary Event this past weekend.  Originally posted by Jamie Brad Silverberg.  I think that’s all the credits needed.

Anyways, look at it!  Starman is real!  We can dream that the rest of the Pro Wrestling wrestlers will make their way to PWS or to other promotions around the world.

3.  There is a huge amount of custom toys for these characters.

From action figures to statues, the love of NES Pro Wrestling is not contained to digital mediums.

The Munny toys (which is a customized toy you can find at http://sites.kidrobot.com/munnyworld/ ) comes from the work of Varick Rosete http://varickrosete.com/

These action figures were found over at Gamer Investments.  I couldn’t find any other details about them but damn that’s cool.

http://gamerinvestments.com/video-game-stocks/

2.  Figures aren’t enough?  Check out some art!

Wrestling fans, and video game fans, really are clever as hell.  There are dozens, near hundreds of NES games that don’t get this kind of love.  If we look at all video games, there are thousands of games that are forgotten.  Not a whole lot of Chessmaster fan art out there.

This first bit of art comes from the Joe Gamer site.

http://sunsetflip84-retrogames.blogspot.com/

Not sure where he found them though, but full credit to whoever the amazing artist is that made these pieces.

This next bit is from Lordwormm’s DeviantArt page:

http://lordwormm.deviantart.com/art/Pro-Wrestling-NES-274828144

Best of all, from Rusty Shackles and Palette Swap comes this stunning piece of art.  Rusty is all over the internet and chances are some amazing piece of art you saved on your desktop is from him.

Rusty’s site:  http://tabletopfetus.tripod.com/

Palette Swap site:  http://palette-swap.blogspot.com/

1.  Don’t listen to anyone else, A Winner is You.

The bad translation from this game has become and internet phenomenon and even made it into the mainstream.  But its not for ironic purposes.  Pro Wrestling is listed as the 172nd greatest Nintendo game of all time.  While its a feat for any game to make it into the top 200 of every Nintendo game ever made, this ranking is far too low for Pro Wrestling.  I mean, Wave Race?  Pilotwings?  Conker?  Love the games all you want, they are not better than Pro Wrestling.

Great Puma is widely considered one of the toughest bosses in all of video games.  For that alone, this game should be in the top 100 if not the top 50.  Furries aside, how much Conker art is out there?  25 years after the game came out there is still much love for it.