Why Fighting Games Should be Considered Sports Games
 

Sport
–noun
1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

Not considering fighting games in the "sports" genre is a absolute farce in this gamer's opinion.

In addition to the definition of the word -- an athletic activity requiring skill of physical prowess and often of a competitive nature -- for proof one has to look no further than a Hollywood blockbuster released in 1988. You see, if you actually break down every fighting video game that has been released since the beginning of time, you notice one prevailing theme. Fighters from around the globe (or alternate dimension) compete in a tournament in hopes of becoming grand champion while defeating evil or taking over the universe in the process. Sound familiar? Heck yeah it does, ever seen the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic Bloodsport?

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Wait a second am I mistaken? Isn't Balrog the boxer from Las Vegas and Vega from Spain with the claw and mask. That picture doesn't look right...

Good write-up

that screenshot is from the original game, the names were switched when it was ported to English.

i'd say fighting games are not sports games the same way GTA is not a racing game. boxing, MMA, wrestling those are all fine, once you start throwing fireballs, turning people to ice and busting out moves like Voldo, as fun as those games might be, they are not sports games.

Wrestling (WWE) being a sport is debatable though.

Wrestling games could be considered fighting games since they have power gauges and super moves (as far as I know).

The names are different in Japan. I believe our Bison is Vega, Vega is Balrog, and Balrog is Bison.

yea wrestling definitely straddles the line between the two. the recent ones don't exactly have supermoves as much as it has like signature dunks. i give them a nudge towards the sports area in that for the most part the actions are still physically possible.

there are some exaggerated wrestling games too just like there's NBA Jam and NFL Blitz. but the core "wrestling sims" i'd say are closer to sports game than fighting games.

Yeah, that makes sense.