The Main Event

The Main Event (released in Japan as Ring no Ohja) was a professional wrestling arcade game released in 1988.

Its gameplay is similar to many other wrestling games of the time. A player selects two different wrestlers as their tag team, and they wrestle another tag team. If the player wins, his team moves on to another match. If he loses, he can opt to continue.

Every wrestler had essentially the same moveset: all the basic wrestling moves; dropkick, body slam, pile driver, brain-buster (or suplex), etc. Foreign objects could also be used. Unlike other games of the time, certain maneuvers could not be pulled off by lighter wrestlers on heavier wrestlers due to weight differences. Some wrestlers could also do illegal maneuvers such as biting, eye gouge, or hair pulling. Turnbuckle moves could also be performed, but were very difficult to pull off.

Matches were won with pins, submission holds, or out-of-ring timeouts. For pins and submission holds, you had to press the Wrestle button more quickly than your opponent, moving a status bar beyond a certain point. After each win a newspaper article shows your winning wrestlers photo with a headline that they won. A feature of the game is that the wrestlers would perform a special move when you pressed a direction and the Wrestle button. Exactly which move the wrestler performed depended upon timing and the exact location of your wrestler relative to the opponent. Adding coins to increase your "health" did little to revive your wrestler after a lengthy beating or even increase his chances of kicking out of a pin. Also, as the game progressed, the computer opponents became more difficult to beat, until they became practically impossible to pin, forcing you to win using only submission holds or time-outs. However, if you do move all the way up the ranks and win the Championship Title you then defend it against the computer who is even more difficult.

The game is extremely rare and was all but removed from circulation due to alleged copyright infringements on the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). First, the name The Main Event could not be used because the rights to use that phrase was owned by the WWF. Also, although using different names, each and every wrestler a player could choose from was a lookalike of a contemporary WWF wrestler. One place the game is located is at the world's largest arcade museum located at Funspot in Weirs Beach (Laconia, New Hampshire).

Characters included Alan The Empire (a red-haired, bearded André the Giant), Conan the Great (Hulk Hogan with a full head of hair), Bigfoot Joe (King Kong Bundy with pink hair), Kamikaze Ken (Ricky Steamboat with little to no alteration), Saturn Six (whose look was similar to the Road Warriors), The Maui Mauler (similar to Haku), San Antonio Smasher (very similar to Koko B. Ware), and El Condor (very similar to Mil Máscaras).

The game has an interesting place in Konami history, though, as its game developmental engine was used for several of their hit beat-em-up arcade titles such as Crime Fighters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.