Mike Haggar, The Greatest Politician of All Time

Politicians, in a word, suck. In a few more words, they talk a lot, but more often than not, they are talking from the hole that crap comes out of. Mike Haggar is known for many things. He was a former professional wrestler. He once did a pile driver on a shark. As insane as that last one might sound, most surprising is that Haggar is a politician. Haggar is the mayor of Metro City, which is basically Final Fight's version of Gotham City but without criminals with gimmicks. Metro City's biggest problem is the Mad Gear gang. One day the Mad Gears decide to kidnap Haggar's lovely daughter Jessica to sway the mayor into letting the continue to run around the city like a bunch of unsupervised thugs. Haggar is not like other city officials. Rather than do what most political figures would do like hold a press conference that's a long winded way of saying the city won't give in to terrorism, Haggar takes to the mean streets to dismantle every member of the Mad Gear gang with his bare, gigantic hands. Haggar is not just a politician, he's a really freaking good one.

Uh, dudes, your boy over there is laid out and Haggar's
fists look they they aren't nearly done crushing skulls. Why haven't
you made your backs small?

Further separating himself from many other politicians, Haggar doesn't surround himself in the company of incompetent boobs. Jessica's boyfriend, Cody, a seasoned fighter, and Cody's friend Guy, a shinobi, accompany Haggar on his journey through Metro City. So that's a muscled out, peeved poppa wolf, a highly skilled martial artist and angry boyfriend and a freaking ninja all on the same team. The Mad Gears are so screwed.

Any good mayor should be tough on crime but you really gotta admire Haggar for not being afraid to do the job himself. OK, so he has a personal stake in sticking it to the Mad Gears since they (foolishly) took his daughter. But the original Final Fight was far from being the only time Haggar had to show do some hands on work outside of the office.

In Final Fight 2, the Mad Gears had the balls to take Maki's father and Guy's fiance prisoner so he travel across the globe with Maki and Carlos just to punch them in the face. With the Mad Gear gang gone in Final Fight 3, a new gang emerges under the Skull Cross name and begin an assault on Metro City. Guy returns to fight at Haggar's side with newcomers Dean and Lucia and the Skull Cross gang are promptly put down.

Perhaps it is due to his time in the ring as a wrestler that Haggar prefers the direct approach to crime, but any mayor that as badawesome at the job as he is definitely has my vote. If more politicians were like him, the world would be a much better place. He may not be the politician we deserve, but he is unquestionably the one we need.