Top 10 Wrestling Video Games of All Time

It’s officially that time of the year again as World Wrestling Entertainment gears up for its biggest event, WrestleMania 42, and developer 2K Games launches the latest iteration of its long-running WWE 2K series with WWE 2K26. In that spirit, today I’m looking back across gaming’s history to find my 10 favorite wrestling games:

10) Giant Gram 2000: All Japan Pro Wrestling 3 / Toukon Retsuden

There’s a lot of nostalgia baked into the early parts of this list, and even with that I’d say neither Giant Gram 2000 nor Toukon Retsuden, which eventually was released in the US as Power Move Pro Wrestling, hold up all that well. Still, I wanted to give them a little shine for specific reasons. Toukon Retsuden seemed light-years ahead of the competition when it launched as a New Japan Pro Wrestling game in terms of graphics and fluidity. As for Giant Gram 2000, I fired it up on the Dreamcast while organizing my garage last year, and the energy of the crowd and commentary are infectious, even though it’s all in Japanese.

9) Saturday Night Slam Masters

An arcade-style mashup with fighting-game elements, Saturday Night Slam Masters made for a lot of fun. It included some characters that certainly appeared to be based on wrestlers of the time—The Great Oni had Great Muta vibes, and Alexander the Grater bore a striking resemblance to Big Van Vader—and teaming up with a friend to go through the Team Battle Royale tournament was an absolute blast.

8) Fire Pro Wrestling World

There’s an element of “either you get it or you don’t” with the Fire Pro series, which has a very different grappling mechanic than anything else. If you can embrace that, and the more old-school graphics, the ability to seamlessly create any wrestler that has ever walked the face of the earth and engineer dream matches is S-tier stuff. Fire Pro Wrestling World added a lot of features in DLC, including additional storylines and a Promoter Mode, that rounded out the package, albeit at a stiff price.

7) WWF WrestleFest

If you think both this and its predecessor, WWF Superstars, belong on the list, I can see the argument. They’re very similar, though, and as with some other games here, I’m going with what I consider the best version. WrestleFest had better graphics, more wrestlers, and even double-team moves. It was also one of two arcade cabinets at my local 7-Eleven, meaning it’s the one I played way more. It’s on the shortlist of full-sized arcade games I’d want if I ever have enough space for an actual man cave.

6) WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006

I owned SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, and it was a great experience on both systems. The gameplay was tight, and the gimmick matches were well executed. The addition of General Manager Mode was the big selling point, though, allowing you to run one of the shows in a competition for fans. While it may not be the deepest booking sim, it seemed awesome at the time.

5) Virtual Pro Wrestling 2

Between the original Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 and its sequel, I shudder to think how many hours I spent on the Nintendo 64 using my handy cartridge adapter to beat the region lock. These games were essentially Japanese versions of WCW vs. nWo: World Tour and WWF WrestleMania 2000, respectively, but there were some differences in move sets along with expanded rosters and altered appearances of some wrestlers that worked in Japan.

4) WWE 2K23

While WWE 2K22 was the more important release, resetting the series after the disastrous WWE 2K20, the following year’s WWE 2K23 felt more fleshed out. MyRISE had two distinct storyline paths, and the John Cena Showcase was among the best in the series. It also polished up the gameplay that had been revamped during the two-plus years between 2K20 and 2K22. This isn’t to say the series has trended the wrong way over the past two releases; it’s just felt more like incremental improvements and tweaks.

3) WWF WrestleMania 2000

For me, there’s a clear divide between the top three games on the list, and you can move them about in any order you’d like. I also acknowledge that WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth is deserving of a spot on this list. To me, however, it’s a notch below the next game on my list, and I didn’t want to double up. I’m making an exception in that philosophy for WrestleMania 2000 and No Mercy simply because this was WWF’s debut with THQ, which had previously been the developer for WCW. It was another blow in the Monday Night War, and the move away from Acclaim was a huge win for Vince McMahon and company.

2) WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain

Released back in 2003 during a time when my interest in wrestling had waned following the closures of WCW and ECW, Here Comes the Pain turned out to be a classic. It also holds the distinction of being one of the few games I ever bought used from GameStop. The gameplay was great, and the Season Mode seemed to go on forever. HCTP helped bring me back into the wrestling fold and stayed locked in my PS2 rotation for years.

1) WWF No Mercy

Released one year after WrestleMania 2000, No Mercy sported improved graphics, more creation options, and the ability to play storylines. It had a massive roster, added Ladder matches, allowed you to identify allies and rivals, and much more. No Mercy was the final game under the AKI Corporation banner, but it was so revered that All Elite Wrestling reached out to the game’s director for help in the development of AEW Fight Forever (to unfortunately underwhelming results) more than two decades later.