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CWA: Capcom Wrestling Association - The world's largest among the bunch of wrestling associations which mushroomed in 1980's. With its legendary champion disappearing, CWA is going to host a world tournament called "CWA Crush Carnival." Use your tactics and techniques to beat out terrifying contestants.
Game description from the FM Towns version.

Saturday Night Slam Masters (Muscle Bomber: The Body Explosion in Japan) is a wrestling/fighting game released by Capcom in 1993 for the arcades. The original game is a typical wrestling game set on the viewpoint used by fighting games, with the winning conditions being either a 3-count pin, 20 seconds ring out or forcing the opponent to give up. The story revolves around the CWA (Capcom Wrestling Association), which was formed by 8 different wrestling groups all led by Victor Ortega. When Ortega suddenly vanishes, the group falls into chaos and the BWA (Blood Wrestling Association) takes advantage. A tournament is started to find the new chief of the CWA. The game itself has no actual story, and the endings are just the winning character bragging about his victory.

The original has a roster of 10 wrestlers, almost all of which have different names and backstories in the Japanese version. They are presented English name first:

  • Biff "The Rockin' Russkie" Slamkovich (Aleksey Zalazof): An Ukrainian wrestler from a bureaucratic family who trains under Mike Haggar. He hates when people don't take wrestling seriously. Alex bears more than a passing resemblance to him.
  • Gunloc "The Loose Cannon" (Lucky Colt): American wrestler very popular with the crowd. He trains alongside Biff with Haggar, and has the bad habit of hitting on Jessica whenever he can, gaining the hatred of Jessica's boyfriend Cody. The English localization threw in hints about him being related to a certain Street Fighter character, which were picked up by Street Fighter: The Movie, where the Cyborg character Blade is revealed to be him, as well as Guile's brother (rather than being hinted about it).
  • The Great Oni (Mysterious Budo): A flashy and speedy wrestler from Japan, which excites the crowd with his style. He's got a rivalry with El Stingray due to their fast and flashy styles.
  • Titanic Tim "The Battle Axe" (Titan the Great): An English wrestler who uses his large size to intimidate his opponent. He's acquaintances with Birdie and at times they formed a tag team nicknamed "500 Trillon Power."
  • El Stingray "The Heartbreaker" (El Stinger): Mexican masked luchador with a highly flashy and acrobatic style, which he's very proud of.
  • Mike "The Uncivil Servant" Haggar (Mike "Macho" Haggar): Everyone's favorite Metro City mayor, in his pre-elections wrestling career (changed in the English version as being post-mayoral career; Haggar comes out of retirement to show all the young punks in the CWA what a real wrestler is).
  • Alexander "the Grater" (Sheep the Royal): Hailing from Australia, a former rugby player who moved to America and gained notoriety for being way too violent. After being kicked out of football, he turned to pro wrestling.
  • King Rasta "Mon" ("Missing IQ" Gomes): Hailing from the Dominican Republic, Rasta Mon lived peacefully among monkeys until he was found and his abilities tested, which led to him joining pro wrestling. He has a monkey buddy, Freak, which serves as his manager.
  • Jumbo "Flap" Jack (Kimala the Bouncer): A wrestler from Chicago and The Dragon to Scorpion. He enjoys seeing blood dripping from his victims. Before joining Scorpion he worked first as a bouncer and later as a wrestler's bodyguard, in both cases losing his job after getting a bit too violent.
  • The Scorpion (The Astro): The mysterious leader of the BWA, whose past is unknown. The closest the game has to a Big Bad.

An Updated Re-release titled Muscle Bomber Duo was released exclusively for the arcades, which focuses solely on the 2-on-2 Team Battle Royale mode, adding new moves to each wrestler and finally allowing same character selection for all four players, followed by console ports of the original game on the Super NES and Genesis. Finally, a sequel was released, also exclusive to the arcades, under the name Ring of Destruction - Slam Masters II (Super Muscle Bomber: The International Blowout in Japan), which ditched the wrestling mechanics for a pure 2D versus fighting game experience (in other words, it featured round-based matches and victory by K.O.), under the excuse of Scorpion changing the rules. Outside that, the game follows the same non-plot as before, now with Ortega coming out of retirement to hold the final bout for the championship. The ten original wrestlers are joined by four new ones:

  • Victor Ortega: Legendary undefeated champion of the CWA, who retired after finding no one able to beat him. A non-playable character in the first game who is shown during the attract sequence and in the game's best ending, he is brought out of retirement to join the playable roster in the sequel.
  • Rip Saber: A Canadian BWA wrestler and former military, which uses any means necessary to attain victory.
  • The Wraith: An Indian wrestler with a ghastly appearance, who fights using his long fingernails and a nest of snakes hidden within his clothes.
  • Black Widow: Hailing from Germany, she's the only female wrestler, albeit she's actually hiding that fact (she uses a masculine voice in-game and all, and her ending has her ditching the act).

This game provides examples of:

  • '80s Hair: Jumbo Flapjack sports a mohawk and certain promotional art (such as the poster above) shows that Titanic Tim did at one point, too. Tim now has a kind of pompadour mullet.
  • Acrofatic: Jumbo Flapjack is very quick, agile, and flexible (look at the height on that punt!) despite being utterly enormous. This is also true of Alexander to a lesser degree.
  • All There in the Manual: The Japanese flyer for the original Muscle Bomber gives out extensive backstories for all the playable wrestlers and as well as some of the non-player characters (including Harry Hicks, the referee). Naturally, in typical Capcom fashion, the backstories in the English version of the game are not exactly consistent.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Green-skinned Wraith, though he's meant to look like The Undead.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Black Widow, especially out of uniform.
  • Amplified Animal Aptitude: Rasta Mon's monkey Freak is said to have a basic understanding of human language. Then again, he's also Rasta Mon's manager.
  • Artistic License – Geography: Biff's in-game profile puts his hometown as "Kiev, Russia". It's likely that Capcom sticking with making Zangief's nationality as Soviet throughout the Street Fighter II series even after 1991 led to the confusion.
  • Ascended Extra: Ortega started out as just a story-only character, but became the final boss of the third game.
  • Ascended Meme: The localized backstory claims that Gunloc is Guile's brother. In Blade's ending in Street Fighter: The Movie, Blade is secretly infiltrating M. Bison's organization and turns out to be Guile's brother Gunloc. The Shadaloo Combat Research Institute profile on the Street Fighter V Character Encyclopedia website has a profile for Blade as a Shadaloo agent, but does not give further details.
  • Berserk Button: Titanic Tim hates being called a "disco reject"; apparently he hears that a lot, might be the headband.
  • Boring, but Practical: Gunloc and Biff's Sunset Splash special is a simple roll-through shoulder throw, but it does a lot of damage.
  • Breath Weapon: Jumbo Flapjack breathes fire and poison mist.
  • The Cameo:
    • At times, Jessica would appear and enter the ring to cheer with her father in his victory pose.
    • Ryu, Chun-Li, and E. Honda can be seen in the audience in the first game.
    • Balrog (the boxer, that is) and Zangief each appear in the background of a stage in Slam Masters II — namely, in their hometowns of Las Vegas and Moscow, respectively.
    • In return, Jumbo Flapjack and Biff Slamkovich appear in Ken's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2, along a bunch of other "Capcom universe guests" for his then girlfriend Eliza's birthday party.
  • Canada, Eh?: Jumbo "Flap" Jack, who is from Chicago in Muscle Bomber, is characterized as a Canadian in Slam Master. He's always talking about felling logs, and even says "eh?" in his quotes. This would result in the Canadian wrestler Rip Saber in Super Muscle Bomber being changed to Australian in Ring of Destruction, although his stage is still set in Calgary in both versions of the game.
  • Captain Ersatz: With the notable exceptions of Haggar, Gunloc and Biff, every Slam Masters/Muscle Bomber character had a real life expy or a combination of a real live grappler and a Street Fighter charcter (physically or stylistically):
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    • Rip Saber, reflected in his movelist in which he employs things such as hand grenades to fight.
    • Jumbo Flapjack will choke out opponents with his wrist tape and breathes mist.
    • King Rasta Mon and the Wraith both bite opponents in some of their grapples.
  • Color-Coded Multiplayer: Every player character in Team Battle Royal is given a fixed character palette rather than using their default one they used in the Single Match. This would become convenient in the Duo revision, which allows for same character selection for multiple players.
    • Player 1 - Red
    • Player 2 - Blue
    • Player 3 - Yellow
    • Player 4 - Green
  • Comic-Book Time: The Japanese backstory sets the series before the events of Final Fight and based on Haggar's age difference between both games, the original Muscle Bomber is supposed to be set in 1983 (six years before Final Fight). However, the games never actually make any attempt to make it look like they're set in The '80s (particularly Aleksey Zalazof is established to be from the former Soviet Union and the game uses the current tricolor flag of Russia instead of the red and yellow Soviet one). The Japanese flyer for Super Muscle Bomber actually establishes that the game is set in 1994.
  • Contortionist: Wraith, on top of his size and supernatural powers, is also supremely flexible. On a more realistic level, Black Widow is able to bend in a lot of unusual ways to deliver some unique attacks.
  • Dub Name Change: As seen above, all of the wrestlers in the first game except Haggar (who merely got a different nickname).
  • Dumb Muscle: King Rasta Mon, or as his Japanese name puts it, "Missing IQ." Jumbo Flapjack doesn't seem like the brightest, either.
  • Expy: Jumbo Flapjack is basically Zangief with a sun-and-moon motif and also from Mr. Heart. Gunloc, King Rasta and Rip Saber share several traits with Guile, Blanka and Rolento, respectively and Titanic Tim is basically a British Raoh who looks a bit like Thunder Hawk.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Ortega does this for being the final boss in Ring of Destruction.
  • Fragile Speedster: El Stingray.
  • Garbage Wrestler: Rip Saber utilizes foreign objects such as shovels and hand grenades in his special moves.
  • Genre Shift: The original Slam Masters was a typical 2D wrestling game with limited depth movement in which players were required to pin their opponents to win a match. Slam Masters II on the other hand plays like a typical 2D fighting game with multiple attack buttons, a single-fighting plane, victory by K.O., and a round-based format.
  • The Giant:
    • Titanic Tim, officially standing over 7'9". His bio lists his style as "Giant Wrestling", which means he mostly fights by being really huge. He has a bit of trouble with projectiles in Ring of Destruction.
    • The Wraith is 7'2", taller than everyone except Titanic Tim, though his fighting style is based on contortion and supernatural powers.
    • Jumbo Flapjack probably also counts by virtue of his girth, but at a listed height of 6'7" he's also pretty tall. He doesn't fight like much like a giant, though his super grapple is a classic big man move, the giant swing.
  • Heel: The four BWO members: Jumbo Flapjack, Rip Saber, The Wraith, and The Scorpion. The only explicit heel in the CWA is Alexander the Grater.
  • Heroic Build: Everyone. Not for nothing the art is done by the co-author of Fist of the North Star, Tetsuo Hara.
  • Hoax Hogan: Victor Ortega in Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II is the Final Boss, although he appears as a non-playable in the previous games (most notably on the opening demo and in the 1CC ending). The Capcom Wrestling Association's original founder and owner who had also doubled as its first undefeated and undisputed champion. Even when he's more based on "Superstar" Billy Graham (Hulk Hogan's mentor and trainer), Ortega has some of Hogan's mannerisms and poses.
  • Husky Russkie: Biff is actually an inversion, being a more balanced character and not even the tallest.
  • Impact Silhouette: Ending a round in Ring of Destruction with a wrestler's special throw will create one with the opponent.
  • Impossible Hourglass Figure: Black Widow.
  • In-Series Nickname: All wrestlers are given nicknames in their bios. Also, certain tag teams in Duo are recognized by the computer and given a specific nickname, like Biff and Gunloc being the "Hyper Cannons."
  • Japanese Ranguage: Calgary is mislabeled as "Calgaly" in both Saturday Night Slam Masters and Ring of Destruction.
  • Kid-Appeal Character: El Stingray was technically this for being the shortest wrestler, standing at 5'6". He's an ankle biter.
  • Latin Lover: In one of his losing quotes, El Stingray bemoans that his ladies won't stand for his beautiful face being so mangled.
  • Lightning Bruiser:
    • Jumbo Flapjack is quite agile for a man of his size.
    • Ortega is also a particularly fine example of this trope. While he's not fat like Jumbo, he is still easily one of the largest and heaviest men in the game, but has movement speeds on par with speedsters like Oni, Stingray and Scorpion.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Each wrestler has a full entrance theme about a minute and a half long, but only about 5 seconds of it ever plays in Slam Masters and Duo, and only about 3 seconds in Ring of Destruction. Players do get to hear a lot more of each character's respective theme upon clearing Arcade Mode with them, however.
  • Lost in Translation: Converting Jumbo Flapjack's bio to imperial measurements loses a minor joke. He's 6'7" and 441 lbs. In metric, he's 200 cm and 200 kg.
  • Market-Based Title: Strangely enough, the second game (Muscle Bomber Duo) kept the original Muscle Bomber name for its World version, while the third (Super Muscle Bomber: The International Blowout) is localized as Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II.
  • Masked Luchador: El Stingray and Scorpion.
  • Mighty Glacier: A few, Titanic Tim being the most prominent.
  • Mirror Match:
    • Absent in the first arcade game, but added in the Genesis version, where each character has four palettes that are selected depending on which button of the standard Genesis controller the player uses to pick their character. The standard palette for each character is selected by pressing the B button.
    • In Muscle Bomber Duo and Ring of Destruction, a player character's color palette are fixed by control panel (unlike in the Street Fighter series, in which their determined by which button is pushed to choose the character). Because of this, Player 2 in Ring of Destruction always uses the character's alternate palette no matter what and all the players use alternate palettes in Muscle Bomber Duo to make it easier to distinguish everyone since all the matches are 2-on-2.
  • Mission-Pack Sequel: Muscle Bomber Duo is this to the original Slam Masters.
  • Moveset Clone: Biff and Gunloc have nearly-identical movesets, though uniquely enough for this trope most of their shared moves have different inputs between them. They also have unique projectile attacks and stock grapples. This is justified as both were training partners and rivals.
  • Multiple Endings/Cliffhanger: In the first game, simply beating the game has your character challenged at the championship ceremony by three unnamed wrestlers who, judging by their attire, have formed a Power Stable. Beat the game without continuing, and instead you are challenged by a returning Victor Ortega. Either way, you don't get to play, or even see, the fight; instead, the game ends as the new challenger(s) climb into the ring, with the phrase "The next battle begins..."
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: There is no system regarding strength vs. weight, so El Stingray can lift Jumbo Flapjack as easily as he can lift The Great Oni.
  • Pro Wrestling Is Real: Not that it would really matter, you wouldn't want them breaking the fourth wall in the middle of a show would you? And a management sim doesn't scream "put quarters in me".
  • Race Lift: Half of the characters from the original Muscle Bomber had their nationalities changed during the conversion to Slam Masters and even those that kept their nationalities still had their hometowns changed.
    • Zalazof is from Moscow, while Slamkovich is from Kiev
    • Lucky Colt is from Miami Beach, while Gunlock is from Slam Town
    • Mysterious Budo is from Kamakura, while the Great Oni is from Osaka
    • Titan the Great is from Wigan, while Titanic Tim is from London
    • Sheep the Royale is from Melbourne, Australia, while Alexander the Grater is from Kentucky, USA
    • "Missing IQ" Gomes is from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, while King Rasta "Mon" is from Venice Beach, California
    • Kimala the Bouncer is from Chicago, USA, while Jumbo "Flap" Jack is from Yellow Knife, Canada
    • Haggar and Stinger/Stingray are the only ones to have the same hometown in both regions, while Astro/Scorpion is always kept unknown
    • Rip Saber is from Calgary, Canada in Super Muscle Bomber and from Sydney Australia in Ring of Destruction
  • Raised by Wolves: King Rasta Mon was raised by monkeys.
  • Rated M for Manly: The vibe alone should make it obvious but if that's not enough, the artwork and character design for the game is done by Tetsuo Hara, the mangaka for Fist of the North Star.
  • The Rival: Oni and Stingray have a rivalry over their flashy styles, while Gunloc and Biff are both rivals and training partners.
  • Shared Universe: By virtue of the fact that Mike Haggar is a playable character and various Street Fighter II characters (such as Chun-Li, Honda, Zangief, and Balrog) can be seen in the backgrounds of certain stages.
  • Shock and Awe: Scorpion can somehow generate lightning, thought he's only seen using it the intro and his taunt.
  • Shout-Out/Continuity Nod:
    • In Hugo's ending in Street Fighter III 2nd Impact, his opponents in a tag team match are presented as either Biff and Gunloc or Black Widow and Haggar.
    • Biff Slamkovich mentions a "Comrade Zangief" in his losing quote.
    • Haggar's Limit Break in Namco × Capcom is named after this series.
    • In the Creative Closing Credits of Capcom's RPG game Breath of Fire II, a group of bouncer Mini Bosses are given names. Which ones? Kimala (Flapjack), Gomes (Rasta Mon), Titan (Tim), Sheep (Alexander), and "Astoro" (mangled Astro, a.k.a. The Scorpion).
    • The logo for Super Muscle Bomber, the Japanese version of Ring of Destruction, uses the same font to spell "SUPER" that was used for the Super Street Fighter II logo. The SUPER word sprite also appears whenever a successive special throw is performed right after a taunt.
    • In a non-Street Fighter example, Titanic Tim and Birdie's tag team name, "500 Trillion Power" is a reference to the tag team of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, also known as The Megapowers.
      • It could also be a reference to the Kinnikuman tag team of Buffaloman and Ramenman/Mongolman, who were the 10 Million Powers.
    • In another Kinnikuman reference, El Stingray's Atomic Diver special is directly inspired by Kinnikuman Mariposa's Fake Muscle Revenger, complete with his pose on impact.
    • In the English localization, Gunloc was hinted to be a relative of Guile, even though no such relation was ever alluded to in the Japanese version. This relation was brought up again in the arcade version of Street Fighter: The Movie, where Gunloc turns out to be the alter ego of the renegade Shadaloo soldier Blade.
    • In Super Muscle Bomber, Astro quotes one of Souther's lines from Hokuto no Ken in his win quote.
      俺の体に流れるは帝王の血!! だれも俺を倒すことはできないのだッ!! (Within this body flows the blood of an emperor! No one can defeat me!)
    • In Street Fighter V, various characters from this game are active fighters on CWA, like Alex, Birdie and Zangief. Also, after Black Widow, it's stated women are now allowed on CWA, seen from the same game that R. Mika, Nadeshiko (Mika's partner) and Laura are also part of the fights in their Story Mode in SFV. Additionally, Widow is responsible for a Career-Ending Injury suffered by Mika's trainer, Yoko Harmageddon.
    • According to El Fuerte's Japanese SFV profile, he and El Stingray were trained under the same teacher, Meteorito Jr.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Black Widow is the only female character, a fact that isn't even revealed until the player clears the game with her.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: Much like Street Fighter II before it, the stage BGM will speed up and become much more frantic in Ring of Destruction when one player's health is low during match point.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Several techniques, Haggar being the best known example with his Spinning Clothesline and Spinning Piledriver.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Out of all the women in Capcom fighting games, Black Widow was the largest for a long time, dwarfing a majority of them at 6'6" (198cm), 209lbs (95kg). It wouldn't be until Marisa came along nearly thirty years later that she'd be dethroned, and only then by a small margin. note  And judging by Widow's ending, at least 60% of that height is in her legs.
  • Stout Strength: Jumbo Flapjack definitely fits this trope, and so does Alexander to a lesser extent.
  • Tag Team: One of the play modes, made the central focus in Muscle Bomber Duo.
  • Title Drop: At least in the original version, as it's the In-Series Nickname of Ortega ("Master of Muscle Bomber").
  • Wild Child: King Rasta Mon's backstory describes him living like an animal in the mountainous forests of the Dominican Republic well into adulthood until he was discovered by civilized people.
  • Wild Samoan: Rasta is from an Atlantic island rather than a Pacific one, but otherwise, he's a perfect example of the trope, fighting with bites and headbutts and running around with a monkey.
  • Wrestling Game: Only applies to the original game and Duo. Slam Masters II is really more of a competitive fighting game with wrestling gimmicks.
  • Wrestling Monster: The Wraith. Yikes.

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