Put Up Your Dukes

Several former SNK employees worked on the Yatagarasu series, and this is fairly obvious with Jet. Many of Jet’s moves appear to have been directly influenced by Ralf from King of Fighters. Jet faced discrimination in his early life as a half-Japanese child of a foreigner. He was never ashamed of his ancestry, and the ridicule he faced only served to strengthen his resolve. His career as a freelance journalist often places him in precarious situations, but his tenacity prevents him from backing down from a challenge. Jet has a strong distaste for weapons, but he learned to box from his father and is happy to showcase his skills. He perceives himself to be a badass action hero and likes insulting his opponents after fights. He’s a little over the top at times, but his confidence has made him quite the ladies’ man.

Akihiko Sanada is a high school student and a member of the “Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad” dedicated to investigating and fighting demonic “Shadows.” Akihiko’s boxing skills are put to good use against these Shadows, but the well-respected upperclassman initially took up boxing for completely different reasons. After his younger sister died in an orphanage fire, Akihiko was devastated and felt powerless for not being able to save her. Vowing to become stronger, Akihiko turned to boxing to learn how to fight. He soon became a champion student boxer and the captain of his school’s boxing team. After graduating high school, Akihiko traveled the world in his pursuit of becoming stronger and perfecting his punch. Akihiko is a very disciplined fighter, and uses the pain of loss as a catalyst to focus harder.

TJ Combo was the undisputed boxing champion for many years before he was caught with cybernetic implants in his arms. He worked hard to rise through the ranks, but spent all of his money on the illegal implants in a desperate attempt to hold onto his title. With his reputation destroyed and no job to fall back on, the humiliated boxer sunk back into the seedy backstreet gyms where he grew up and vowed to fight his way back to the top. Combo’s journey wasn’t an easy one, and he even lost an eye in an encounter with a genetically-engineered dinosaur. Through it all, TJ Combo remained an optimist and a patriot. He proudly wears the American flag on his fighting attire and has never stopped believing in the American dream. If the boxing thing doesn’t pan out for him, I’m sure he can land a book deal.

Afro Thunder is only a bantamweight, but what he lacks in size he more than makes up for with charisma. (Muhammad Ali has nothing on Afro Thunder.) He’s a perfectly capable fighter in his own right, but its fair to say that Afro Thunder draws crowds because of his style and showmanship more so than his boxing prowess. This probably explains why he decided to pursue a career in Hollywood. (It also explains why he was featured on the cover of all three Ready 2 Rumble games.) Afro Thunder tests his skills against a myriad of stereotypical boxers, and he has even had the opportunity to step into the ring with the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jackson, and Bill Clinton. Outside the Ready 2 Rumble series, Afro Thunder was also featured as a hidden character in TNA iMPACT! for some reason.

An American foreign exchange student living in Japan, Tiffany Lords is loud, obnoxious, and absent-minded. She’s also a reflection of how Japanese view American girls. With her big mouth, big hair, and big boobs, Tiffany promotes a culture of excess. Every aspect of her character is completely over-the-top, and her outfits skirt the line between stripper and circus performer. Even though she’s an airhead who can barely speak Japanese, Tiffany bravely sets out to investigate after students at her high school start disappearing. Tiffany is not a pure boxer by any stretch of the imagination – her fighting style blends flashy cheerleading routines with kickboxing techniques – but her groovy punches are spectacular. If she has enough time to wind up, her boxing gloves will start glowing and her punches will become impossible to block.

Steve Fox was enjoying his run as the middleweight champion of the world before being pressured into throwing a high profile fight. When Steve refused, a price was put on his head and a world-class assassin was dispatched. As luck would have it, the assassin in question happened to be Steve’s biological mother, Nina Williams. Steve was adopted during infancy and had been looking for his birth parents for some time. Nina was an amnesiac with no recollection of Steve’s birth, but her motherly instincts kicked in and she decided not to follow through on her contract. When the outbreak of wars led to the cancellation of most major boxing tournaments around the world, Steve continued to train. The fact that he doesn’t use any kicks during his fights makes him radically different than most characters in the Tekken franchise.

Vanessa is a normal housewife who serves as a mercenary in her spare time. Her agency commissions her to enter the “King of Fighters” tournament to gain information on a secret syndicate that was using the tournaments in an ill-advised plot for world domination. Vanessa uses a quick and agile boxing style, and was actually one of the first female boxers to ever appear in a video game. Vanessa’s punches are so fast that they seem to slice the air around them, and she can even punch a projectile right back to its sender! Even more impressive is the fact that Vanessa somehow pulls off the “tie with suspenders” look without looking like an idiot. Heavy D would have been a more traditional choice from the King of Fighters series, but Vanessa has appeared in more games and has undoubtedly surpassed his popularity.

In Japan, Balrog is known as M. Bison. Capcom was concerned that M. Bison sounded too similar to Mike Tyson, so they changed his name for the western release of Street Fighter II. The character had more in common with Iron Mike than just his name and appearance. Balrog is self-centered, hot-tempered, arrogant, and belligerent. His pride stems from the fact that he was able to lift himself out of poverty with his boxing skills. Balrog had a lucrative career as a prize fighter, but was banned from boxing after killing an opponent with an illegal head butt. With nowhere else to turn, Balrog joined the Shadaloo criminal syndicate and became their chief enforcer. He was given reigns to the organization after their leader was killed, but ran the company into the ground almost immediately. He should probably just stick to boxing.

ARMS isn’t a typical boxing game, and its premise centers around special arms that can extend across battle arenas. These arms are made from springs, ribbons, ramen noodles, and an assortment of other materials, but Twintelle doesn’t need specialized arms since she fights with her hair! Her beautiful curls have incredible range and allow her to box without ever having to raise her hands. Her opponents are often sluggish when they fighter her since they’re taken aback by her fame and beauty, but she’d probably have this effect on people even if she’d wasn’t an A-list celebrity. She has ass for days, and the way she struts around in her heels is almost hypnotic. If you were to splice the DNA of Bayonetta and Nicki Minaj, the end result would look a little something like Twintelle.

Little Mac is the quintessential underdog. Standing 4’8″ and weighing in at a mere 107 lbs., the 17-year-old faced many obstacles while working his way to the top of the World Video Boxing Association. The WVBA doesn’t understand weight classes, so Mac was forced to fight opponents that were twice his size. Poor Mac practically had to jump in order to punch them in the face! Making matters even worse was the fact that his trainer offered cryptic advice between rounds and humiliated the kid by dressing him up in a pink jumpsuit and chasing him down the streets of New York on a bicycle. When he’s not busy boxing Polynesian fatties and Turkish strongmen, Little Mac tests his skills against Nintendo’s all-stars in the Smash Bros. arena. He has no moves outside of his punches, but that’s what you’d expect from a boxer.