Volume 1: Street Fighter '89

As much as we thought we knew all the small details and facts about Capcom’s titles, there was a particular one that slipped through the cracks…Street Fighter ’89. Yes, you heard it right. From the title of the the flyer above, you can see that this game is what we know today as “Final Fight.”

Click on thumbnails above to compare Japanese to U.S. flyer and references to facts below.

The name change was done to avoid any confusions with the later installments of Street Fighter and to preserve the Original Street Fighter name itself, which came out in ’87, so to a logical sense, Street Fighter ’89 could've been an appropriate title, but Final Fight seems to fit the bill better. Given that this is one of Capcom's most popular games, we were definitely surprised when we saw this flyer. So to other fans of Final Fight, below are some more facts that you may not have known:

Origination of some characters in Final Fight

Andore (all variations of them) – Named after the late Andre the Giant, popular from his wrestling appearances with the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Not only tossed by Guy, Cody and Haggar, but also by Hulk Hogan in Wrestlemania.

Axl/Slash – Parodies of members from Rock Band Guns ‘n Roses.

Simon – Based off of the second player character in Forgotten Worlds (1988).

Special thanks: A. Parkin for bringing up this unknown fact and scanning the flyer for us. Certainly a very neat piece of uncommon information and history.