As the sixteen winners of the preliminaries gather in the ring, Sumisu sits alone in the locker room. Reiko steps in and chastises him for not coming to get her, and informs him that she’s getting married the following month. Sumisu stays silent as he fights Tommy Bomber, who, like him, is trying to escape the maze, and Axe Duggan.
The scene then shifts to Akira Saeba and his sister, discussing Sumisu’s mental state. Reiko was unaware of Sumisu’s mental break down, and assumed he was just avoiding her; that’s why she set up the marriage to spite him. Learning about his condition, she resolves to apologize to him, but Akira begs her to wait until after the finals, to avoid breaking his concentrations.
Sumisu finally manages to defeat Saeba, and the two embrace. However, his dream of meeting his partner in the finals is crushed by Dick Slender, the other semi-finalist, who kills him on the ring.
The Undertaker, Sting and Rick Rude, the inspirations for Sumisu’s three possible partners, were still alive when the game released. Similarly, Akira Meda, the real-life version of Saeba, did not participate in international competitions after founding RINGS, and only wrestled in the WWF for a few months in the 80s.
The first challenger, Tommy Bomber, is based on legendary Japanese Pro Wrestler Jumbo Tsuruta, who was known as “Tommy” during his amateur years. The illness mentioned in-game was Hepatitis-C, which forced him into hospitalization in late 1992, and thus retirement as a Main Event from AJPW.
His health was never the same, so after his return to the ring the following year, he only fought in lighter exhibition matches, though Giant Baba never lowered his salary. He described himself as having put “one foot in the grave”.
Axe Duggan, the second challenger, is based on Hulk Hogan, one of the most popular wrestlers of all time. He fought in Japan under NJPW between 1993 and 1994, and his portrayal in the game is based on his extremely patriotic persona, often using the American flag as a prop, with his theme song “Real American” really hammering this point.
