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Although often overlooked, the first "wrestling" game for the NEOGEO was actually
King of the Monsters released in 1991. It was at its' core a wrestling match and it
contained all of the key elements of the sport, but because it used a larger monster
sized scale for its' implementation, it was heavily promoted by magazine reviews as
an action title and it fared quite popular both at the arcades and on the home system.
Initially announced in 1992, SNK was reported to be working on another NEOGEO
wrestling game. It was untitled at the time, but it was reported to be 140 megs in size!
However, very little information has ever been found on this earlier build of the game
and so we may never really know what it may have looked like.
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At some point along development, SNK made the decision to change the character
roster of the game.
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At first, we assumed this "9th" character was originally intended to be a final boss character.
(very similar to the Great Puma of Nintendo's NES Pro Wrestling) However upon closer inspection,
it was discovered that he was actually the original concept for Roy Wilson. Roy Wilson began as a
"standard" wrestler (similar to Terry Rogers) but was eventually redrawn and recreated with a
more diverse personality as a German rastafarian character.
It is completely unknown as to why SNK made these changes. If they had enough time to redo one
character, as well as double up two others, why not simply leave the roster at 8 with the 9th
character as a final elusive boss? A boss that could also be hidden and playable. Surely this
would have been a far better addition then simply repeating 2 characters. With some more time,
SNK might have been able to have incorporated a real final boss into this game, but instead
the character Master Barnes was given the status of "current SWF champion" and as such is the
last wrestler you must defeat to see the ending.
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ATTENTION! CHECK OUT THIS NEW UPDATE!
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the BETA CARTRIDGE has been FOUND!
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NEW INFORMATION!
The early beta cartridge of 3 Count Bout / Fire Suplex Wrestling
has been found! It turned up in March of 2026 in the San Jose area
of California. We are actively working on getting the cartridges
rom data read and preserved so that we can see and play this unique
early build of the game which was first previewed and showcased in
the pages of Die Hard Game Fan Magazine back in April of 1993.
In the meantime, while we wait for the full and complete analysis,
here are a few side by side comparissons detailing some of the
known differences observed thus far between the BETA and the FINAL rom.
(of course, the aforementioned "special 9th wrestler" is present here)
The "how to play" screens are more primitive. They seem like basic
placeholders with less detail. Button C is incorrectly shown in blue
whereas it should be green as button 4 is blue. Also the fonts used
for some of the text are the default standard fonts saved inside the
neogeo M rom data tables. (see the "push A button" texts and beta
screenshot 3 for referance)
The default player one and two character selections are different.
In the beta (an earlier less-detailed Terry Rogers) is the default
player 1 selection while Roy Wilson (in his earlier standard wrestler
design) is the default player 2 selection. And in the final, The Red
Dragon is the default player 1 choice with Roy Wilson (revised version)
used for player 2.
Terry Rogers appearence underwent several changes prior to release.
He originally had short and tight blue ring trunks and blue boots.
He was later outfitted with long USA flag themed color spats and
boots to make his appearence more representative of the USA.
And the small icon pics of the wrestlers on the character
selection screen were all changed.
We should hopefully have more details and information on this great
find in the near future. And I will do my best to update it here.
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CHARACTER ROSTER SELECTION COMPARISSONS
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This is a side by side comparisson of the character icons from 2 different betas.
The first beta has the original roster of 8 wrestlers containing the original version
of Roy Wilson. The second beta has changed Roy Wilson to version 2 and increased the
roster to 10 wrestlers. However, interestingly while Bomberder's palette swap has been
implemented, Blubber Man remains unique and has even lost some weight! And Master Barnes
appears to be less ripped! But the character that eventually becomes Blubber Man's
palette swap looks completely different; possibly a unique wrestler? This character's
appearence is more muscular and has a lots of facial hair with a full beard and mustache.
It's very interesting to see just how many changes SNK was doing to the game. Tag team
duo's were quite common in the wrestling world so surely this was being considered during
development.
(the BETA composite screen was shown for comparisson purposes only)
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Amazingly, the 106 Mega Shock SNK wrestling game 3 Count Bout, which features 10 player
selectable characters, was originally an 82 Meg game with only 8 selectable characters.
However, all is not what it seems. Although the final version had 2 more characters to
choose from, 2 of them were simply "pallette swaps" of other characters with alternate names.
