#SuperStrongMachine

[lostinyourears]

Fire Pro Roster Recap #3 : Thunder Pro Wrestling Retsuden

Figured I’d knock this one out since it seemingly has the smallest roster of the console releases for this series. This one is probably one of the last ones I would recommend because it’s rough and earlier edition of Fire Pro. While on the SNES the series became more polished and pretty much perfected the formula by the last few iterations on SNES. This would be the only Fire Pro game on the Sega Genesis and because of that is fairly unpolished and as said above has a small 12 man roster. 

Since most of these were also featured in the first game of the series I will be copying the bios over and will designate those entries with an asterisk which will make future entries easier because I already have a real life photo of them and a written bio.

Akira Maeda (*) : A wrestler who worked for many companies and is credited with being one of the pioneers of the shoot style. He worked for NJPW, Japan UWF(Which he co-created and was a promoter for) and he was even featured on World of Sports working for all 3 of those companies in the 80′s before 1991 rolled around Akira Maeda would found the wrestling promotion Rings, that would later shift focus in 1995 and become an MMA promotion.

Antonio Inoki (*) : Oh boy! Inoki, how can I sum up such a massive and important career in a paragraph? Truth be told I can’t for him or any of these men, but here we go. Inoki is one of the most important wrestlers ever and is credited with the invention of the enzuigiri. When Inoki started down the wrestling path he train with Karl Gotch in old school catch wrestling. Inoki would name his own style of wrestling ‘Strong Style’ which is still used today by many Japanese talents.

Inoki is also credited as being a forefather of the modern MMA boom. Inoki use to fight people from around the world who all were trained in different fighting arts. Many of his fights were scripted, but still showed the world was interested in that kind of competition. Also, he fought Ric Flair in North Korea which drew 150,000 and 190,000 people for the two day event and is still the biggest wrestling show in recorded history.  

I could go on for ages about Inoki as he has a long intriguing history. He ontop of the above listed things also was : founder of NJPW in 1972 which came about after Rikidozan’s(The original Japanese Wrestler/Promoter) Japanese Wrestling Association went defunct having NJPW/AJPW spring up in it’s place. Inoki owned NJPW out right until he sold the company to Yuke’s in 2005. Inoki is also a politician in his home country of Japan where he was elected to positions twice. That’s all for Inoki, if you want to know more feel free to look him up. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t books about the man who has a huge legacy.

Bam Bam Bigelow : Bam Bam first worked smaller promotions before working for WWF in the mid 80′s before going to NJPW from 1989-1992 where he would form a dominant tag team with Vader, the two even capturing the IWGP Tag Titles. After his stint in NJPW he would go on to work for all 3 of the major US Promotions in the 90′s WWF, WCW and ECW. Most notably headlining WM XI versus linebacker Lawrence Taylor in what may be the highest profile match to ever include a non-wrestler. He was also a main event talent in ECW helping lend credibility to the 3rd player in the United States wrestling scene.

Genichiro Tenryu (*) : Genichiro like many wrestlers actually started in a different Martial Art. Sumo, which is of course very popular in Japan. Tenryu started his sumo training at the young age of 13 and would continue down that path for another 13 years before shifting his focus to the Puroresu ring.  He would then be scouted by Giant Baba of AJPW. Tenryu would be sent over to Texas where he was trained by Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk. In the early 80′s Tenryu would team with Jumbo Tsuruta collectively called  “Kakuryu” (鶴 = kaku = tsuru (the “tsuru” in Tsuruta) + 龍 = ryū in Tenryū).

Tenryu would go on to become one of the most decorated players in AJPW history. The Tokyo Sports awards, a non partisan award for japanese wrestling achievements would give Tenryu Best bout/MOTY award an astonishing 9 times and call him MVP of the year 4 different times.

Hulk Hogan : A man who doesn’t need an introduction or an explanation, but just in case you’ve had the 80′s erased from your memory. Hulk Hogan is easily considered the biggest draw in the 1980′s wrestling scene. Main eventing several Wrestlemania’s, the only wrestlers of the 80′s who can rival him in North America would have to be Ric Flair. He would go on to reinvent himself in the mid 90′s and become a focus of WCW programming when he was the 3rd man in the stable NWO. 

Jumbo Tsuruta (*) : Another huge star for AJPW through the 80′s. Jumbo as mentioned above was a stellar tag team with Tenryu. He also had 7 MOTY’s from Tokyo sports and captured nearly anything of note in AJPW. He would sadly die in the year 2000 after complications from a kidney transplant, just short a year after his retirement in 1999. Though he hadn’t been in serious competition most of the 1990′s where he mostly worked 6 man tag matches that were comedic in tone.

Jushin Thunder Liger : Arguably the greatest Cruiserweight/Junior Heavyweight of all time. Jushin Thunder Liger has done almost anything you can name. While he never worked in AJPW, he had done pretty much everything you can in NJPW including being one of two men who have won BOSJ on 3 separate occasions. He also worked in several North American companies : TNA, CMLL, WCW and most recently a one off match in NXT in 2015. In the early 1990′s he was one of the most beloved wrestlers by WoN who voted him best Technical/Best High Flyer/Most Outstanding All 3, 3 years in a row. 1990-1992. You’d have a hard time finding many more wrestlers more decorated than Liger. 

Kensuke Sasaki : A mega star of Japan who started in the business in 1986, before taking an international excursion which is common for young guys stars of NJPW to do as a way of gaining skills outside the Japanese ecosystem. When he returned to Japan in the early 90′s he formed a popular tag team with fellow wrestler Hiroshi Hase the two having a great series of matches with the Steiner Brothers who were in Japan and worked with NJPW through WCW as well. Kensuke is one of two men to ever hold all three major Japanese Heavyweight titles : IWGP(NJPW), Triple Crown(AJPW) and GHC(NOAH). He also founded his own promotion Diamond Ring which he ran from 2005-2014 when it closed it’s doors. Sasaki has retired, his last match was in DDT in 2015 though his official retirement happened before that. 

Riki Choshu (*) : Riki Choshu innovated a move that would define early 90′s wrestling in the states and most don’t even know it. That move being The Sharpshooter or as Riki Choshu called it : Sasori-gatame.

Riki Choshu is also credited as being the first ever traitor heel in Japan. Turning on his friend Fujinami after being snubbed for the inaugural tournament for the IWGP Heavyweight championship in 1983. Riki Choshu is also one of the few people to do a clean sweep of the G1 Climax where he won every match in the tournament he had.

In 1998 Riki Choshu would retire, his final card he wrestled 5 matches in one night and won 4 of them. After his retirement he would focus more as a booker at NJPW where he spent most of his career. He has moved a decent amount post 2000 and even had a deathmatch in FMW shortly after his retirement. He has wrestled sparingly in the years since, but not full time.  

Stan Hansen (*) : You can’t talk gaijin(Japanese for Foreigner) and not mention Stan Hansen. The cream of the crop when it comes to American assholes in Japan. The man’s career started with a very good case of ‘turning Lemons into Lemonade’ when he accidently broke Bruno Sammartino’s neck via a botched powerslam. The bookers and Hansen rolled with it and instead claimed the break came at the end of one of Stan Hansen’s destructive lariats.

Stan Hansen would leave WWF shortly after that and have a brief run in NJPW where he participated in the first ever G1 Tag League with his partner Hulk Hogan.

He would move over to AJPW where he would make his name winning anything he could get his hands on. He also was awarded MOTY 3 times by Tokyo sports vs great talents Kawada, Giant Baba and Tenryu. He would also win Most Outstanding Foreigner in 1982 and most popular wrestler in 1980. He by no means invented the lariat, but many credit him with it’s incredible popularity in Japan.

Super Strong Machine : Super Strong Machine is an old school 80′s talent who is most known as a tag team competitor having 3 reigns with the IWGP Tag Titles. He had an excursion like many NJPW talents where he played a native character in Stampede wrestling named Sonny Two Rivers in 83/84, before coming back to NJPW where he wrestled mostly as Super Strong Machine though in various points in his career he wrestled without a mask as just Junji Hirata his real name. He still works in NJPW as a trainer, his last match was in 2014 and most of the 2000′s he worked in tag/trio matches. I did a spotlight on him which you can find here.

Big Van Vader : If Stan Hansen isn’t the most important and over villainous gaijin in NJPW. Starting in AWA in the mid 80′s, his career didn’t really take off until he made his way to Japan in 1988 when he pulled a MitB, Inoki had already had a grueling match with Riki Choshu, but Vader appeared and challenged Inoki, who accepted and was quickly slain by Vader. The pro-Inoki crowd went crazy and rioted which got NJPW banned from the Sumo Hall that had been their home arena for a year or so. 

From this giant debut Vader would go on to become the first ever gaijin/foreigner to win the IWGP Heavyweight championship. He would also win the tag titles with Bam Bam Bigelow in the same time period of the early 90′s. Vader would also have famously one of the most stiff brawls ever  when he and Stan Hansen collided as the two big monsters of AJPW/NJPW at a crossover show. 

He would have success in WCW after this and have a less than memorable run in WWF, the less said about that the better. He would come back to Japan working in both NJPW and NOAH. He retired in 2006 before coming back in 2011 where he has wrestled sporadically every year since.

How’s it play? Awful, the first few SNES games are this unpolished, but have larger rosters. The latter half of the SNES Fire Pro games are polished and have bigger rosters and even the first game on TurboGrafx-16 had 16 people on the roster. 

The thin roster, unpolished gameplay and look leave this as perhaps the weakest entry on any console. While oftentimes Fire Pro is the best option for a wrestling game on any given system, I don’t think that’s the case with this Sega Genesis/Mega Drive entry in the series which is the only Fire Pro game for the system compared to the 6+ on the SNES the last 2-3 of which are great.