The Most Dominant Video Game Athletes of All Time, Ranked

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Nothing hits quite like video game nostalgia, especially when it comes to overpowered athletes and characters whose reputations endure long after their games go out of fashion.

We’ve all got stories. That one kryptonite character who, no matter what you try, puts the TV at serious risk of receiving a controller flush through its screen.

As such, let’s use this as a safe space. A place to reminisce, unjudged, about the most unstoppable sports video game characters of all time.

10. The Undertaker, WWE 2K14

Forget The Rock; it’s The Undertaker who should be known as The Final Boss after the hell he put players through in WWE 2K14. 

Six months before The Deadman’s 21-0 WrestleMania streak ended, 2K devs unleashed “Defeat the Streak” on the world. It pitted players against a version of The Phenom that was essentially programmed to cheat. He could reverse the unreversible, used supernatural tricks to get ahead and would eat finishers like modern-day Roman Reigns.

He could only be faced on a souped-up Legend difficulty, a realisation that had the internet’s sneakiest players literally changing his move set to make things easier.

9. Mark Turmell, NBA Jam

Sometimes, pettiness needs to be admired. 

Mark Turmell was not an NBA star of the 1990s. He was, in fact, NBA Jam’s lead designer. A man whose game couldn’t feature Michael Jordan because the Chicago Bulls icon opted out of the league’s group licensing agreement to control his own image rights.

Turmell, a huge Detroit Pistons fan, thus decided to design the game’s code so Bulls players would miss game-winning shots against his beloved team.

He was also available to unlock as a playable character using the code “MJT,” entering the court with unbelievable stats, which just so happened to be led by ridiculous dunking skills.

8. Adriano, Pro Evolution Soccer 6

If you know one thing about Adriano in PES 6, I guarantee it’s this: 99 shot power. 

The Brazilian footballer was enjoying his best career spell with Inter Milan at the time of the game’s release in 2006. Konami put his best stats in exactly the right places to create a one-man wrecking machine that totally outshone the player in real life.

Adriano’s maxed-out shot power was reinforced with 90 acceleration and 98 balance, essentially making him too quick to catch and too strong to knock down. 

While his career didn’t go the way many expected—Adriano retired 10 years ago after barely making 10 appearances across his last five clubs—the legend lives on to this day. Even through music.

And yes, FIFA/EAFC fans, we know about Claudia Pina, Victor Ibarbo and your endless cohort of OP stars. Adriano stands tall as the one.

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7. Matt, Wii Sports

Look at his face. Nintendo made him so punchable, yet why couldn’t you hit him?! WHY IS HE STILL STARING?

Matt is the final boss in Wii Sports’ super-not-serious-but-I’m-going-to-cry-soon boxing minigame. He pretends to be your friend. He’s your coach. Your Mickey. LIES.

Before long, the champion boxer is whacking you in the face and reading every return shot like he’s in The Matrix. 

The fool even showed up in Wii Sports Resort as Swordplay champ a couple of years later. Matt’s memeness has endured, much like his pristine, cold-blooded face, which barely has a scratch on it.

6. Jon Dowd, MVP Baseball 2005

Remember watching Jon Dowd slughome run after home run on TV? You know…the Jon Dowd? No?

Better known as San Francisco Giants legend Barry Bonds, old JD was the powerhouse stand-in for Bonds when he declined to participate in the MLBPA’s licensing agreement (somewhat of a theme for the top athletes on this list). 

Dowd was an assistant producer at EA Sports whose name would go on to become synonymous with overpowered athletes in video games. Bonds put together his best season in 2004, elevating Dowd’s stats to 99 power and 99 contact against right-handers. 

Although he looked absolutely nothing like Bonds, the exact same date of birth, weight and height made it obvious he was modelled on one of the sport’s best.

5. Jeremy Roenick, NHL ’94

So good that friends often agreed to ban him.

Jeremy Roenick wasn’t actually the highest-rated player on NHL ’94, but he was the symbolic beneficiary of a coding quirk that took his already excellent stats and accidentally elevated them to god-tier.

The Chicago Blackhawks star flaunted a combination of pace and shooting power that would make him lethal in normal circumstances.

In the Sega Genesis version, a programming mistake known as the “weight bug” made lighter players harder to knock down while allowing them to deliver disproportionately powerful checks—an ideal advantage for Roenick.

4. Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

You know you’ve got a problem when you’re against a man who is the final boss in a game named after him. It’s even worse when that man just so happens to be the scariest boxer in history.

There are plenty of reasons why Mike Tyson regularly makes it onto toughest-video-game-boss lists, even without the sport filter.

His uppercuts utterly destroy player-controlled character Little Mac in the opening round. He starts to fade if you survive the onslaught, but then begins to add more variety to his barrage of shots, including blink-and-you’ll-miss-it jabs that will have you in serious danger.

Speaking of blinking, if you see Iron Mike momentarily close his eyes in Punch-Out!!, you better get the hell out of the way.

3. Pablo Sanchez, Backyard Baseball

Good luck thinking of a nickname that is more badass than “The Secret Weapon.” It certainly beats having to play baseball with “Cheese” or “Stinky Phil” in the schoolyard. 

Pablo Sanchez’s brilliance is very simple to understand. In the original Backyard Baseball, he had maximum ratings in batting, running and fielding, making him an extraordinary all-round player.

“Stood tall” might be the wrong turn of phrase. Sanchez was tiny! That only further added to his brilliance, making his strike zone much smaller for pitchers to hit. Never mess with the small kid.

2. Michael Vick, Madden NFL 2004

“Bo Jackson and Steve Young in one body” is quite the way to describe Michael Vick in Madden NFL 2004. That’s how EA explained Vick’s design to the man himself, a virtual god who put the term “cheat code” into modern gaming nomenclature.

Vick simply had it all. Speed: 95. Agility: 95. Acceleration: 94. Throwing power: 97. Stamina: 95. What on earth are you meant to do to stop that? It’s a question EA quickly tried to answer.

The Atlanta Falcons great’s impact was so massive that the devs introduced the “Hit Stick” a year later. They also placed Ray Lewis on the front cover, perhaps as a defensive antidote to the lifetime of mental scars caused by those who were exposed to taking Vick on.

1. Bo Jackson, Tecmo Bowl

You can’t spell ‘Broken’ without ‘Bo’.

The average Bo Jackson run in Tecmo Bowl looks like the moment when Bryan runs down the street in Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil movie. There are bodies flying everywhere. Pure carnage, and no hope that the greatest virtual athlete in gaming history would ever be caught.

The phrase “he’s running laps around them” is often said in jest. Not when it comes to Bo in Tecmo Bowl. He was literally too fast for the game, to be fair. His zig-zagging ability was so unstoppable that Rickon used it for inspiration during The Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones (probably).

Perhaps Quagmire said it best in Family Guy: “You’re not really good, you’ve just got Bo Jackson.”