I doubt the greatest fighters in modern martial arts will square off against Street Fighter or Dragon Ball Z characters any time soon, largely because of rights issues. Also some of the fighters in this equation are, you know, fictional. But oh what a fight card it would be.
I recently stumbled across the artwork of Bryan Lee, a concept artist and professor at Otis College of Arts and Design in Los Angeles. Among many other works of inspired geekery, he's created gorgeous, humorous images of characters from Street Fighter, Dragon Ball Z, and premier mixed martial arts organization The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) squaring off against each other. These are less expressions of fictional fisticuffs and more sly personality pieces. The pairings are great. I wish these fights could happen in real life.
For example:
Brock Lesnar vs Zangief
Conveniently, Lee recently did an interview with Vice's Fightland site, and he elaborated on this pick. "The fight I'd like to see is between Brock Lesnar and Zangief," he said. "It'd be awesome to see these two giants in the Octagon. I don't know who'd have the upper hand, but I know there'd be massive damage in the scene. We'd have Brock's F5 maneuver—which characterized him in the WWE and looks truly painful—against Zangief's 360 blender move."
Here are some more nice ones:
Adon vs Wanderlei Silva
Lyoto Machida vs Ryu
For reference, Lyoto Machida's nickname is "The Dragon." Ryu, meanwhile, can mean "dragon" in Japanese. Clever. They're also both karate stylists, with Machida being one of the few fighters to successfully adapt the ancient art to high level MMA. He cannot, however, produce fireballs from his palms. Not yet, anyway.
Dan Henderson vs Dan Hibiki
Heh, Dan vs Dan. Street Fighter's is all talk and some pretty, er, comedic action will the UFC's is all action and no talk. There's also some solid cameos all throughout these images. I spotted Sylvester Stallone, Don Frye, Sagat, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Fighters don't always fight, though. Sometimes they punch cars they sit down for a friendly meal. Here, Dragon Ball Z characters get in on the (non) action too:
Corn! Why not?
So that's fun. Who wins these fights? Also, are there any more real life vs fantasy matches you've pondered? Has anyone attempted to make any of these in EA Sports UFC? Discuss away.