#fire pro

And now, a brief history of Goichi Suda a.k.a. Suda51 in video games. (Or at least the parts relevant to this Ryu Number.)

A Brief History of Goichi Suda a.k.a. Suda51 in Video Games (Or At Least the Parts Relevant to This Ryu Number)

Suda's first credit as a video game developer was as the director of Human Entertainment's 1993 entry into the Fire Pro series, Super Fire Pro Wrestling III: Final Bout; he was actually hired by Human after the original director quit. That went well enough for him to return with the same role for 1994's Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special and also write the original scenario for the brand new "Champion Road" story.

In "Champion Road," you play as a wrestler with the default name of Morio Sumisu, named after the singer Morrissey from the band The Smiths because Suda was a fan. The scenario has achieved a degree of notoriety for its contents, including a Ric Flair stand-in (in the Fire Pro tradition) named Dick Slender responsible for killing Sumisu's mentor and an Undertaker stand-in named Underground.

The scenario, however, is definitely most infamous for the way it ends, which is likely also the reason you may know anything about it. Having both defeated his longtime rival, an Akira Maeda stand-in named Akira Saeba, and dethroned the aforementioned Dick Slender to become the world champion, all while on the verge of both physical and mental breakdown, Sumisu celebrates his victories... and commits suicide by gunshot at his house three days later, in despair over an inability to find meaning in wrestling, despite having reached the professional pinnacle and avenged his fallen friends.

(MyRISE, eat your heart out.)

Four years later, Suda left Human to found Grasshopper Manufacture, where he would direct and write original titles such as The Silver Case, Flower, Sun, and Rain, and killer7. And while he's "only" credited under "Original Plan" for 2004's Michigan: Report from Hell, that game was published by Spike, who had by then bought the rights to Fire Pro from the insolvent Human Entertainment.

In 2007, Grasshopper released No More Heroes, in which protagonist Travis Touchdown can be trained by retired wrestler Thunder Ryu and learn wrestling moves by watching videos of Thunder Ryu's old matches. Of special note is that one Thunder Ryu was the stand-in for Genichiro Tenryu in many Fire Pro games, including the ones that Suda had a hand in.

Furthermore, one of the wrestling moves Travis can learn from watching Thunder Ryu's tape is the powerbomb, which is notable here as it was arguably the signature move of Genichiro Tenryu.

So as to whether the Thunder Ryu in No More Heroes is the same Thunder Ryu in the Fire Pro series... well, generally speaking, the Fire Pro games Suda worked on aren't generally considered part of the wider Kill the Past universe, and I wouldn't say it's an incredible resemblance between games, but the powerbomb thing certainly isn't nothing.

While we're talking about wrestling, let's fast forward to 2020. Three years after the 2017 release of Fire Pro Wrestling World, which was published by the now merged Spike Chunsoft, story mode DLC for the game was released. It's called "Fighting Road: Champion Road Beyond" (or "The Vanishing"), and oh hey, look who's back.

While the details of "Champion Road Beyond" are significantly less relevant, it is worth noting that the main rival of protagonist Sumio Sumisu is a wrestler named Sammy the South a.k.a. Notorious.

(On the left, by the way.)

Tangentially, here's this guy from the Bubblegum Fatale DLC for Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, released one year ago in 2019.

Same belt, even. Funny how things come full circle.