SF already has enough pro wrestlers.
If it ain’t Haggar, there’s no reason for them to be added.
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To me the most interessing will have been
ORTEGA: easily my first pick… while very typical pro wrestler and SF have already lot of them, the guy have that aura of #1 of Capcom universe (at PW), can’t deny see Zangief and Alex take on him to get the ultimate SF world wrestling crown would be someway epic
WRAITH: would love see Dhalsim get him as his personal nemesis. Would fit SF even more than SNSM itself lol
ALEXANDER: him vs Gief would be like have Zangief vs Big Bear without need SNK, got very cool design too that would fit SF
BLACK WIDOW: cool potential for a female waaay more unique than usual (she’s actually big body female). Would be also an epic rival for Mika. Would love see her fight alone vs Mika+Nadeshiko
Fun thing is i think BW influenced current Seth character design
EL STINGRAY: would have loved get him over Elf, and i’m one of the few that actually LIKE Elf
SABER: will be fun see him recruited by Rolento lol, would feel a bit redundant though
HAGGAR: would like him as late seasons content, assuming i already got Zangief and Alex. I prefer both over him (Gief in particular), but he will make a great rival for both
That’s my list
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True she doesn’t have the craziest moves, but with SF5 being so focused on trying new things with their already existing characters, I can see her getting a thorough make over and getting new moves, especially since she was in one game from decades ago with a style that was built solely around their RoD engine. Repurposing her for SF or MvC could yield some cool stuff.
I agree there’s a lot, though if there was a way for her to get in, I think she’d be a fun and unique pick.
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Yes! I forgot to point that out. As he was doing that break down, the entire time I was like “Uh hey…now compare to OTHER GENRES”
But he didn’t.
Freaking art major…doesn’t know the first thing about statistical analysis…
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Even if you stick with fighting games, you can get some interesting comparisons with other modes that deflate the “people don’t care about story mode” argument.
Looking at Steam’s achievements for Tekken 7, sure, only 54% of players even completed the first chapter of story mode. At the same time, only 50% of players have won an online match while only 53% have played ten online matches. If you look at DOA6, only 64% of players have the achievement for playing an online match, and that is the achievement with the highest completion rate. You can find similar situations with other fighting games, with various modes (online, training, Arcade, etc) not showing much better numbers than story modes.
On a related note, 45% of Steam MK11 players have the achievement for completing story mode. It is the 5th highest completion rate achievement in the Steam version.
When you do go back to looking at all games, not just fighting games, you can find games where a surprising number of people don’t even have the most basic “played the game at all” achievements. You can find games that might award an achievement for pressing Start on the main menu, but only 80% of players might have it.
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That’s like saying Street Fighter has enough “fighters”. Or “martial artists”.
There was good diversity between many of these “pro wrestler” guys. Especially the newcomers from Ring of Destruction, which didn’t even look or feel like wrestlers.
Astro and Ortega = Badasses. I like that Astro is like a mix of karate guy and pro wrestler, and has some weird electricity and teleportation powers. And Ortega, well, he looks like a towering Olympian and has vast ki powers.
Gomes = is fun. And he’s more of a savage fighter than a wrestler.
Wraith, Black Widow, Sabre = These don’t even have anything “pro-wrestly” other than a couple grappling moves. Can easily forget they were wrestlers, and add more special moves.
The only one I think you could be right with, is Stingray. He’s a more generic wrestler, and mostly because of El Fuerte’s addition he could never have a chance. But damn me I love his movelist.
And for Budo, well, I simply love everything about Budo.
It’s way, WAY too sad, seeing that Capcom very likely lost the rights over those characters. Muscle Bomber, in general, deserved much more love than whatever it ever got.
THIS IS UNMISSABLE. Various interesting backstories from the developers, including some curiosities.
Paying homage to its U.S. sales staff, the Street Fighter development team included two Easter eggs in the background of Birdie’s stage. Front and center is graffiti of Bill Cravens, Capcom USA’s vice president of sales and marketing. Cravens died in 2007, but according to his sons Todd and Ryan, he was a larger-than-life, outrageous figure who made strong connections everywhere he went, which inspired the staff in Japan to draw sketches of him, as well as to include his face in the game. This isn’t Cravens’ only cameo in a Capcom game; he also appears as an enemy named Bill Bull in Final Fight . “He was very open and warm,” says Street Fighter director Takashi Nishiyama, “the kind of person you don’t see much anymore in the gaming industry.” Additionally, a sign in Street Fighter advertising Ristorante Donnaloia refers to a restaurant that former Capcom USA Western regional sales manager Aldo Donnaloia’s father used to run in Kobe, near Capcom Japan’s offices. “That’s a typical example of how the engineers in Japan thought of us,” says Donnaloia.
So Bill Bull’s appearance and first part of the name (the second likely coming from Mad Bull 34) came from Capcom USA’s vice president of sales and marketing Bill Cravens.
Ryoredcyclone also reported a note from AKIMAN, noticing that Wong Who’s name came from a Taiwanese restaurant in Ōsaka near Capcom’s headquarters. It’s now closed but still open in Aichi and Ōita, and was named 王府 Wàngfǔ (“prince’s mansion”, or “royal government” depending on Chinese or Japanese), ワンフ Wanfu in Sino-Japanese.
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No it fucking isn’t. It’s ONE specific martial art. It’s like saying there’s too many boxers, or muy thai users.
And there are already, like, 6 of them in SF. Making it the most represented martial art in SF besides maybe Ninjitsu.
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No, it’s not. Not really. Aside from having some throws, most of the Muscle Bomber “pro wrestlers” have very different gameplay. There’s no reason to say no.
What about Ansatsuken? 
Btw i agree with you, martial arts variety should be ever one of SF most important values
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If the first thing you think when you see Wraith or Sabre is “these guys are pro wrestlers”, there’s something very wrong with you.
As for Astro, he’s more of a hard-kicking martial artist similar to Fei Long, who also has electricity and can teleport.
Ortega has the physique of a wrestler but more of an Olympian, also has energy powers. By the way, isn’t G a pro wrestler, fighting-style wise?
Budo goes along Astro, fights way more like a martial artist than like a pro wrestler.
So? Balrog and Dudley play completely different. Sagat and Adon play completely different. They still use the same martial art.
Oop. You’re right. Let’s go through it real quick.
Ansatsuken: 7
Ryu
Ken
Akuma
Sakura
Dan
Sean
Gouken
Wrestling: 5(7)
Zangief
Mika
El Fuerte
Hugo
Poison
Partially Birdie
Partially Alex
Ninjitsu: 6
Guy
Maki
Zeku
Ibuki
Geki
Vega
According to his profile his fighting style is “All martial arts from around the World”, so I guess partially.
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But most of those who I mentioned didn’t even involve much pro wrestling in their fighting styles. They’re mostly pro wrestlers in name only.
You forget Oni and Kage 
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You might as well give Alex full credit. Even though his design isn’t quite the traditional fighting game pro-wrestler stereotype, he both is a pro-wrestler story-wise and took design inspiration from pro-wrestling. As for his design differences, they fall into that broader “pro-wrestling” idea that Magegg is bringing forth.
Poison is a debatable case; I’d argue that she should not be included. While story-wise she becomes involved in the world of pro-wrestling, she is a manager instead of a wrestling talent. Nor was Poison designed with pro-wrestling in mind, either as her actual character or as inspiration.
I wouldn’t count Birdie. While he is technically a former pro-wrestler, it doesn’t feel like it plays any defining element in his character or design. (This is where former pro-wrestler Birdie is different from someone like former pro-boxer Boxer.) His initial design seemed to be a regular street fighting punk, later morphing into a chain-wielding comedy act. His connection to Titanic Tim seemed to be the same kind of throwaway “connect everyone” effort that made Gunloc into Guile’s brother. Calling Birdie a pro-wrestler feels a bit like saying Ken is a paper boy because he had a paper route as a kid. (AFAIK, Ken was never actually a paper boy.)
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For Ansatsuken i was counting also
Evil Ryu (since sadly exist and even being just Ryu got his own slot in the past)
Kage
Oni
Wich make 10 Ansatsuken characters that got a slot in a SF game
Of these my 2cents
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Alex to be absolutely in the list
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Birdie not, he’s more a gigantic former criminal/thug who done some money with Pro Wrestling in the past, but in his SF incarnations he was’nt representing it
At the end Birdie tag-team with Titanic Tim can be not that far from what we seen Laura do with Alex in ASF -
Poison not, despite being a Pro Wrestling manager fight more like in FF, specially in SFV. Yeah got a PW move as back-throw but overall i will not consider her as a PW
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I think can be fair count Nadeshiko as a +0,5
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Fun thing Azam is listed as former pro wrestler and it’s implied he may even had a fight in ASF against Cammy, or at least physically stopped her from help Chun Li against Rashid. But he got no slot, nor ingame support role a la Nadeshiko
Now that i think about it IF we want count “Kung Fu” as a loose general group, it may outnumber Ninjutsu crowd too:
Chun Li
Gen
Fang
Lee
Yun
Yang
Rufus
Fei Long
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Got Fei last because he’s supposed to rep Jet Kune Do/whatever version of it SF have… but at the end if we do that loose big group i guess he can be counted in
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Just like Azam also Xiayu and Jianyu got an unseen fight in ASF, but like for him i will not consider them
G show signs of wrestling, boxing, kung fu, karate and he likely knows other stuff too… the point of his concept is being all around the world so canon wise he probably learned fuckton of local styles
Fun thing his wrestling part may come straight from his Lincoln inspired design
“He also, according to the NWHOF’s page on their famous honoree, spent most of that time winning. “In the rough and ready style of the frontier, “catch as catch can” wrestling was more hand-to-hand combat than sport. Lincoln, an awesome physical specimen at 6-feet-4, was widely known for his wrestling skills and had only one recorded defeat in a dozen years.””
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sigh…you’re not wrong.
Alex’s fighting style is listed as “Wrestling and kickboxing” and Birdie’s is “Bar room brawling/pro wrestling”, so I count them both as partial.
Poison’s is “Self-taught acrobatic fighting”, so I’ll give you that one.
Kung Fu is really more of a blanket term for all Chinese martial arts rather than a specific martial art.
For example, Chun Li uses Wing Chun, Yun and Yang use Bajiquan, and Fei Long uses Jeet Kun Do as you said.
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The thing is, bringing some Slam Masters characters would add up to diversity, not the opposite. I’m fully sure characters like Astro, Ortega or Budo would feel like something completely different to your typcal SF “pro wrestler”.
El Fuerte, for example, brought something completely different to previous SF pro wrestler, as he rather used the “high flier” fighting style, than the powerhouse style like Alex or Zangief.
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