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A WINNER IS YOU

Pro Wrestling is a Wrestling Game released by Nintendo in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. (It was originally released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System in 1986, as Puroresu: Famicom Wrestling Association.) The developers of this game went on as Human Entertainment to create the Fire Pro Wrestling series.

Players can choose between the six wrestlers of the Video Wrestling Association (V.W.A.), and those who succeed in winning the title and defending it can face the perfect wrestler, Great Puma, champion of the Video Wrestling Federation (V.W.F.).

Not to be confused with the Sega Master System game of the same title and released the same year, which was a masculinized version of the AJW-inspired Sega Arcade Game Body Slam. Or wrestling in general, for that matter.


This game contains examples of:.

  • Alliterative Name: Korea's Kin Corn Karn.
  • All Your Powers Combined: Great Puma can use any wrestler's move.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Giant Panther. It's unclear if he has dark-skinned ancestry or if he's merely tan.
  • A Winner Is You: The Trope Namer. The line appears after winning a match.
  • Captain Ersatz: The entire roster is based on famous Real Life wrestlers.
  • Combat Pragmatist: The Amazon bites his opponents and uses a fork on them.
  • Death or Glory Attack:
    • Every character can use the brainbuster, which deals heavy damage, but the opponent has to be weakened first. If they're still healthy, it fails and they instantly reverse it on you.
    • Fighter Hayabusa's back brain kick and Starman's flying cross chop. If either move misses the user is left flat on his back.
    • Any move off the top rope. The opponent can roll out of the way, causing the attacker to hurt himself.
  • Facepalm of Doom: Giant Panther's iron claw
  • Heel: The Amazon is clearly meant to be a heel wrestler given his illegal attacks. One could also make a case for Kin Corn Karn, since the crowd does not cheer for his signature attacks.
  • Human Weapon: Giant Panther is called the Ultimate Human Weapon and Kin Corn Karn is called a living karate tool.
  • I Know Karate: Kin Corn Karn has a karate kick special move.
  • Life Meter: Averted, unlike many other wrestling games of the era. Instead, you had to pay attention to sound cues that would play once you had done sufficient damage to the opponent (or vice versa): a quick series of chimes when they were a fair bit weaker, and much more shrill sirens once they were sufficiently hurt enough to be pinned. Without those, all you had to go on was the match timer and the referee's counting. The fighters' actions would also become more delayed as they took more damage.
  • Masked Luchador: Star Man.
  • Medium Awareness: All your selectable characters compete in the Video Wrestling Association and Great Puma is from the Video Wrestling Federation. Probably also a nod to the AWA and WWF.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Star Man plays the same as everyone else, for the most part, despite his 6'3 220lbs stats suggest him having the least amount on the roster, possible excepting King Slender, who is so much taller it doesn't matter. Downplayed with The Amazon, who isn’t much bigger than Starman but prefers using illegal tactics rather than his muscles.
  • Not So Invincible After All: If you manage to defeat the "Invincible Warrior" Fighter Hayabusa.
  • Parts Unknown: Amazon seems to be a resident or at least that is where he originates from. His date of birth is also unknown, as is Star Man's.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Star Man
  • Recycled Soundtrack: Pro Wrestling shares the same title music as Nintendo's other sports games, Baseball, Tennis, and Volleyball.
  • Ring Out: Unlike most real life professional wrestling organizations, a championship can be won by count out outside the ring.
  • Some Dexterity Required: Fighter Hayabusa's special move, the back brain kick, is the most unorthodox one in the game, requiring him to stand at a particular downward angle from his opponent before hitting A. It's also quite easy to dodge since it doesn't involve grappling.
  • Spiritual Successor: Fire Pro Wrestling is one to this game. The programmer of this game even went to Human Entertainment and helped develop FPW.
  • Timed Mission: You only have five minutes to win in single-player mode.
  • Use Your Head: Giant Panther does.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Fighter Hayabusa's only special move is the back brain kick (Enziguri) and King Slender's only special is the back breaker.
  • A Winner Is You: The Trope Namer is the Engrish conglaturatory message after winning a match. The actual "You Win!" screen consists of a picture of two trophies and your fighter (with one title belt on his waist, and another in his hand), and the message "Congratulations! You are V.W.A. V.W.F. Champion!", while the music repeats endlessly.
    • Also overlaps with Beam Me Up, Scotty!, as "A Winner is You" appears only in the earliest copies of the game, with the (much more common) revisions "correcting" the message to simply "Winner is You".
  • Wrestling Doesn't Pay: Star Man is a wrestling space traveler.
  • Wrestling Monster: The "half-piranha, half-man" Amazon.

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