Wrestling games with the WORST rosters.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Because hey, why not have the companion piece to the other thread?

For a quality game the Day of Reckoning 2 lineup is dire. Literally the only established tag team in it is Rene Dupree & Kenzo Suzuki, Suzuki's the only person in it who's not in SvR 2006 while that game has plenty of extra people by comparison, there are only four women in the game and for some reason Lita isn't among them... It's not really the worst thing ever just due to being semi-modern and not being one of the handheld games or something but for the time period it came out it is rough.

[Hypnosis]

The NES WWF games (WrestleMania and WrestleMania Challenge) had no tag team representation, but I guess that was due to system limits.

[Jindrak Mark]

The TNA game had a very bare-bones roster. The AEW one is looking to be the same unless you eventually pay for DLC.

I can't call it a terrible roster because it was still stacked overall but I remember being disappointed that the first Smackdown v Raw didn't have former WCW guys like Goldberg/Scott Steiner/Kevin Nash/Lance Storm who had all left WWE that year. They were some of my favorites to play as in Here Comes the Pain the previous year.

[BorneAgain]

Not really the game's fault, but Just Bring It was a frustrating game due to its November 2001 release date, featuring none of the talent from the Invasion and being a capture of the WWF roster circa Wrestlemania X7. Decent title, but few wrestling games ever felt more outdated to recent happenings than that one.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

Nov 26, 2022 13:23:08 GMT -5 BorneAgain said:

Not really the game's fault, but Just Bring It was a frustrating game due to its November 2001 release date, featuring none of the talent from the Invasion and being a capture of the WWF roster circa Wrestlemania X7. Decent title, but few wrestling games ever felt more outdated to recent happenings than that one.

On par with that is Raw on the OG XBOX. Released early 2002 and it still had K-Kwik and Haku on the roster, along with no WCW or ECW wrestlers.

Not the worst roster by any means as all the main guys were represented, but WWF Warzone had a very small, and very outdated roster. A mid 1998 release and it had Ahmed, Bulldog and Bret.

I'll also vote for Day of Reckoning 2. The mediocre roster combined with that shite stamina system ensure this had less play from me than the original. Having said that, the submission system was awesome.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

War Zone both had a very small roster and was released at such a bad time that it was horribly out of date when it was released and it ended up capturing a time period in WWF history that lasted like a month (Bret and Kane being around at the same time).

[BorneAgain]

War Zone in general feels like a real awkward point because so many guys (Rock, HHH, Owen, Shawn) were in a transition point for their characters and the game feels like its stuck between two different eras of them.

[Ultra Magnus Black]

WWF Wrestlemania, on multiple microcomputer platforms (ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga etc). Only 3 playable characters (Hogan, Warrior, Bulldog) and 5 ‘enemy’ characters (Mr Perfect, Warlord, Million Dollar Man, the Mountie & Sergeant Slaughter).

The sequel, WWF European Rampage, was tag team focused & let you pick from a combination of 4 characters (Hogan, Warrior, Savage & Bret Hart) all of whom were quite literally sprite swaps. ‘Enemy’ teams were Nasty Boys, Money Inc., Natural Disasters & LOD. Some platforms only allowed for singles matches & your enemies were the ‘lesser’ of each team (Sags, IRS, Typhoon, Animal).

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Nov 26, 2022 13:46:58 GMT -5 BorneAgain said:

War Zone in general feels like a real awkward point because so many guys (Rock, HHH, Owen, Shawn) were in a transition point for their characters and the game feels like its stuck between two different eras of them.

The really funny part is how the face/heel alignments were changed to mid-98, but the attires are late-97, so you have oddities like The Rock and Faarooq both being in the Nation of Domination and having the same theme song, but Faarooq is coded to be a bayface since he was kicked out of the Nation by the time the game is released.

And then the opening cinematic on the PSX has footage from mid-97 where Rock was still white meat Rocky Maivia babyface.

[Injustice45]

Day of Reckoning 1's roster sucked. Like its sequel, no Lita even though she was active. It makes SmackDown vs. Raw's roster look like HCTP in comparison lol.

SmackDown vs Raw 2006. Great game, but the roster is mediocre. The legend selection was pretty good, but the main roster left a lot to be desired. Who wanted to play as Sylvan Grenier?

WWF Royal Rumble on Dreamcast. I know it was an arcade game, but 20 wrestlers is paltry.

[Gravedigger's Biscuits]

I remember at the time a lot of furore about SmackDown vs Raw 2008's roster.

It was quite small and lacked guys who you'd think were no-brainers to be in it like Shelton Benjamin. It also had pretty much no tag teams except Cryme Tyme.

[Mozenrath]

WCW World Tour is a good game, but the roster is pretty sparse because it was slapped together in a rush. Doesn't mean that it's not still really neat in its own way, but comparing it to Revenge, it's night and day.

[Bo Rida]

Nov 26, 2022 17:01:59 GMT -5 Injustice45 said:

WWF Royal Rumble on Dreamcast. I know it was an arcade game, but 20 wrestlers is paltry.

Yeah that stands out because it didn't have enough wrestlers to fill the match type the game is based around. It also featured Edge but not Christian which is baffling when there were a few easy cuts.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Nov 26, 2022 11:28:53 GMT -5 Hypnosis said:

The NES WWF games (WrestleMania and WrestleMania Challenge) had no tag team representation, but I guess that was due to system limits.

What do you mean? In Wrestlemania Challege you could do the Mega Powers (Hogan and Savage), the Mega Maniacs (Hogan and Beefcake), the Ultimate Maniacs (Warrior and Savage), 1988 Survivor Series Co Captains (Warrior and Beefcake). The possibilities were endless.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Nov 26, 2022 17:22:58 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

Nov 26, 2022 17:01:59 GMT -5 Injustice45 said:

WWF Royal Rumble on Dreamcast. I know it was an arcade game, but 20 wrestlers is paltry.

Yeah that stands out because it didn't have enough wrestlers to fill the match type the game is based around. It also featured Edge but not Christian which is baffling when there were a few easy cuts.

I remember thinking that was so lame how small that roster was. Especially since at the same time you had games like Wrestlemania 2000 and Smackdown which had forty wrestler or more rosters so it's like they had limits.

Edge usually got promoted for some reason over Christian. I know he eventually ended up getting the bigger push but around 2000 I found it kind of strange as they always kind of came off the same to me in that one didn't really feel superior over the other. Christian being booked stronger and lasting longer in the 1999 and 2000 Survivor Series made it even more weird. Going by those matches you would think Christian was supposed to be the star not Edge.

[BorneAgain]

Nov 26, 2022 17:22:56 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

WCW World Tour is a good game, but the roster is pretty sparse because it was slapped together in a rush. Doesn't mean that it's not still really neat in its own way, but comparing it to Revenge, it's night and day.

World Tour falls into that weird early AKI era where the roster either a bit disappointing or amazing depending on how much you value the WCW element. I was baffled by all the seemingly random "World" inclusions as a kid, but going back and realizing how much great Japan talent was in there really elevated my feelings about the game.

[Psicofreak667]

WWF Raw (1994) for the 32X deserves a dishonorable mention for making Kwang of all people a hidden boss.

[Mike Strike]

I know it's unfair to dump on an indie game that's clearly taking whoever they can get, but Retromania Wrestling's still an odd line-up. I feel like they should've either gone all indies or all legends instead of a combination. With the NWA licensing and being an "official sequel" to Wrestlefest, I don't get why they didn't go all in with it and called the game NWA Wrestlefest. At least then it'd look like the roster had some sort of focus to it.

Wrestlequest's not out yet & already runs circles around RMW in sheer star power.

Also looking like there'll never be any women in the game, which is a bummer. It's a cartoony arcade clone about a fake sport, no one's gonna blow a gasket if it had intergender matches.

[Eunös ✈]

I remember the first Smackdown vs Raws Roster being a bit underwhelming.

A lot of names that made their debut that year were missing.. Mark Jindrak, Garrison Cade and Rene Dupree were the only new names.

Eugene who had been a big part of WWE that year was absent from the game.


Yet guys like A Train and Scotty 2 Hotty who were barely seen on TV were in.

I remember being pretty disappointed with the roster.

[Rudy Gobert Fadeaway]

SVR09 having just about zero legends unless you bought Legends Of Wrestlemania and used the import superstar feature (genuinely good feature, don't get me wrong) that was pretty much designed to stop Legends Of Wrestlemania from flopping was a hilarious move. 

Buy this busted ass game so you can put the roster in to a much better one and never touch this one again.