It’s Time for EA Sports to Bring Back ‘Fight Night’

While EA Sports built its reputation off the success of its Madden NFL and FIFA franchises, their other sports titles have gained serious cult fan bases. As their collaboration with UFC continues to gain fans one day at a time, die-hard EA Sports fans can’t help but remember the game that put realistic fighting games on the map: Fight Night. 

EA Sports’ Fight Night is the crown jewel of combat sports video games that made you appreciate the logistics, strategy and knowledge involved with boxing. EA could surely use a few hits, so it’s safe to say that it is time for the company to resurrect the game.

Here’s my earnest plea: EA, bring Fight Night back ASAP.

Fight Night is a one-of-a-kind video game experience that teaches gamers the cadence and strategic planning it takes to survive and win a 12-round bout. Ever since its debut under the alias Knockout Kings in 1998, Fight Night has made sure the gaming community got to appreciate the authenticity of the boxing world—from the training and preparation it takes to master things like counter punches to the endurance required to survive grueling fights.

Gameplay modes such as MyCareer and Legacy give gamers the chance to put their fighters in the trenches to see firsthand what it takes to fight their way into a title shot. As the saying goes, “One punch can change everything.” Fight Night puts that phrase into practice by giving you the ability to play out situations from actual boxing matches. A prime example: Diego Corrales’s epic knockout comeback win over José Luis Castillo.

Fight Night lets the what-ifs and ultimate comeback moments occur in the game, thanks to the emphasis the developers placed on hypothetical outcomes.

What makes Fight Night so special is the long list of legendary boxers that gamers can play as to live out their slugfest fantasies. This game has helped end debates of who is the GOAT of each division by allowing gamers to simulate matches between boxing’s best. Take, for example, a battle of two of the sport’s most dominant heavyweights, Mike Tyson vs. Muhammad Ali, or a battle of the Sugars, Ray Robinson vs. Shane Mosley. You can even go back in time and rewrite history with virtual rematches of bouts that occurred such as Shane Mosley vs. Oscar De La Hoya or George Foreman vs. Joe Frazier.

Overall, with a plethora of boxing’s most elite meshed with the sport’s greatest of their time, Fight Night allows gamers to answer the question of what would happen if generational greats could be linked up for a bout for the ages.

As boxing slowly regains the attention of pop culture, Fight Night can be the perfect way to help create a new fan base for the sport by showcasing upcoming stars. Back when EA made its last installment, some fighters were creating major buzz for themselves and garnering new fans thanks to interesting fight styles or examples of their capability to dominate a match. Fighters such as Jermain Taylor, Kelly Pavlik, Timothy Bradley and Sergio Mora were turning hands and gaining attention with their showmanship in the ring.

Now new fighters are on the brink of superstardom in the sport, and they can potentially help boxing steal the spotlight from MMA as the world’s favorite combat genre to watch. There’s the quick footwork and swift power punching of champion Vasyl Lomachenko, and the technical hard hitting of middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, aka “Triple G.” Even the heavyweights are starting to come back into form, just like the golden days of the 1990s, with new charismatic stars such as Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.

What all these champion boxers have in common is their pound-for-pound superstar status. As there are current debates about who would win in a unification title bout between Joshua and Wilder, what better way to settle it than on a good ole fast-paced chess match of a simulated boxing game?