Butcher Brown is a beast of a boxer. He has an 82″ reach and weighs 232 pounds on a 5′9″ frame. To put this in perspective, Mike Tyson had a 71″ reach and weighed 218 pounds on a 5′11.5″ body. His arms are almost a whole foot longer and he outweighed Iron Mike by 14 pounds while being a couple inches shorter. This may be freaky family genes, but this smallish guy probably should be fighting in a smaller weight class rather than with the biggest of the bigs.

This is another case of size being the center of the evidence. Giant Panther, like Butcher Brown, is just considerably bigger than the rest of the field. At 6′6″ and 320 pounds, he is easily the biggest wrestler in the Pro Wrestling game. King Slender is the closest at 6′5″ but weighs 40 pounds less at 280. Real life wrestling icon Hulk Hogan was listed at 6′5″ and 302 pounds. Many argue that Hulk’s weight was exaggerated from around 280 pounds. Either way, Giant Panther is a “beefier” version of the Hulkster, capable of taking down Great Puma for the V.W.A. and V.W.F. Championship belts and trophies.

There are three body types that players have in the classic NES game Ice Hockey; “thin guy,” “average guy,” and “fat guy.” The “fat guy” has all of the stereotypical traits of users of performance enhancing drugs. They are drastically bigger physically, obvious even to a casual viewer at first glance. They also possess well documented, unnatural strength. In the game manual their shot strength is described as “dynamite” and their checking as “strong.” They are remarkably slow and are poor at face-offs. This either shows one of the typical side effects associated with steroids in the lack of flexibility. due to muscle mass or it shows that performing enhancing drugs cannot make your skills or concentration better.

Joe Young and Reggie Stocker Are two different players in two different franchises of sports video games. However, they are linked together because of their similarities to each other as well as to the real life “Home Run King” and poster boy for the BALCO steroid scandal, Barry Bonds.  The three of them play outfield and hit cleanup for the San Francisco Giants while piling up impressive numbers. This all may be coincidental, after all they do not look like Barry Bonds. In the off-chance that their attributes are based off of #25 then the correlation can be made that these statistics are just as influenced by steroids as their real life counterpart. It is up to you whether you want to put asterisks next to all of your records from past seasons.

Gears of War

Before the Augustus Cole was killing locusts with Marcus, Dom, and his buddy Baird he was a thrashball star for the Cougars. There is very little known about the game of thrashball or the position of defensive lineman that Cole held down in his prior profession. We do know that he is well known for his play and that he carried over that same intensity from sports to killing grubs. Cole is abnormally large and his armor features no protection for his massive arms. In addition to his freakish size, the conclusion that Cole suffers ‘roid rage from time to time can be made. His constant yelling and heads-first approach in battle gives riding the “Cole-Train” another meaning.

Super Macho Man is a mainstay champion in the boxing world with numerous championships and boasting a 35-0 record with 29 knockouts before Little Mac got to him. The Los Angeles native has the typical physique of a bodybuilder at a massive 242 pounds. When in the ring Super Macho Man is consistently flexing and grunting between throwing punches. His super spin punch is deadly and will take anyone to the canvas if it connects. Most of what he has to say is about his body and such focus with successful results naturally raises eyebrows on its authenticity. “My body is just so totally cool!”

If body size is a common trait shared amongst the names on this list, then the big Russian wrestler Zangief is the headliner. The World Warrior Tournament champion is a towering 7′6″ and weighs a chart topping 365 pounds. His ’spinning piledriver’ was long considered the most powerful move in the Street Fighter universe and he was able to strike from a decent distance while being a primarily close-quarters fighter. He trained extensively in Siberia by wrestling against bears. It it hard to imagine achieving such size and mass naturally as opposed to the Ivan Drago juicing method from his home country.

Bruno Battaglia has many signs pointing to him as a user of anabolic steroids. His temper and overly aggressive style of play earned him the undisputed title of “most hated player in football.” He has well documented instances of partying and confrontations as well as making threats to opposing teams’ players. In an earlier season he even managed to rip the ear off of a player with a vicious tackle. The character showed constant signs of the “roid rage” and “juicing” is an integral part of injury rehabilitation in Blitz: The League. Making matters worse is the fact that the character in later years was voiced and based off of real life steroid user Bill Romanowski. It was to ogood of a match to not put the two together.

Many Games

What video game list is complete without Mario? Sadly this is not a list that Mario would be proud to be included in. Mario has been in hundreds of games throughout the years including his numerous sports games, thus making him eligible in this list of course. Mario is much like Pac Man in that their performance is absolutely increased by outside stimulants. Pac Man ingested pills and Mario uses various power ups. Mario gains an increase in size with mushrooms much like extended use of steroids may do. Also many of the sports titles bearing his name featured shops that allowed players to purchase upgrades for accumulated funds. This sounds like a wide open drug ring. The only question here is whether we are comparing apples to oranges or if Mario is the biggest juicer in digital sports.

When Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire went on their historic homerun chase that ended in record breaking power numbers the entire climate of the sport changed. These guys were hitting 60 homeruns in a day and age when 30-40 homers was a strong power hitting season. The team from Jersey in Bases Loaded featured two very good hitter in Bay (.331 avg, 30 HRs) and Ford (.336 avg, 34 HRs). These statistics would rank in the top tier of top offensive seasons ever because of the high batting average and solid power numbers. Ironically these two are not even close to the beset hitting player on their team. Paste is in a class of his own offensively. His 60 homeruns nearly total the combined amount of the other two star players on his team. More impressive is the greatest batting average ever recorded that he put up. His average of .467 would be a Major League Baseball record by .027 and would be the modern day record by a much larger margin. In the case of Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds their freakish numbers that appear to be an anomaly have all but been proven to be aided by performance enhancing substances. The same conclusion could be made about Paste, unfair or not.