Rawk Hawk

Once they claim their second Crystal Star from Boggly Woods, the party then finds that the third star is hidden somewhere in Glitzville, a giant fighting arena floating high in the sky. Mario and his team travel there, signing up as competitors in order to get the star, which they immediately identify attached to the tournament’s championship belt.

In order to get their hands on it, the party will have to fight their way up through the ranks, eventually coming face to face with Rawk Hawk, a giant musclebound bird and the grand champion of the tournament, who uses his own skill and some underhanded cheating here and there to keep himself on top.

As a fighter, Rawk Hawk will naturally pull his moves from his own fights within the tournament, mostly based on actual wrestling moves. As a fighter, he will be incredibly strong and fast, with good aerials due to his avian nature.

Likelihood rating: Probably not

Character Sheet: Rawk Hawk

 RAWK HAWK

Are you guys excited? I'm excited. You should be too. You know why? Cause today we get to cover all the freakin' amazing characters from Super Mario RPG and the Paper Mario (pre-TOK) series, and even the not so amazing ones too. Here's the full list:

1. Cheep Cheep

2. Bob-Omb

3. Spike

4. Tiny Mouser

5. Mouser

6. Paper Mario

7. Mr. L

8. Geno

9. Mallow

10. Flurrie

11. Tippi & Pixls

12. Kersti

13. Huey

14. Merlon

15. Star Spirits

16. Smithy

17. Kammy Koopa

18. Sir Grodus

19. Count Bleck

20. Dimentio

21. Yaridovich

22. Axem Rangers

23. Lord Crump

24. The Shadow Sirens

25. O'Chunks

26. Mimi

27. Croco

28. Booster

29. Jonathan Jones

30. Valentina

31. Jr. Troopa

32. Doopliss

33. Rawk Hawk

34. Francis

35. Culex

Ladies and gentletoads! Boos and ghouls of all ages! Please welcome to the stage, your champion, the feral nuclear reactor, the terror that flaps in the night, the one, the only, RAWWWK HAAWWWWK!!! Rawk Hawk is a minor boss appearing in chapter three of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the reigning champion of the Glitz Pit. Rawk is a vain and egotistical fighter, who relies on flashy, stylistic moves and cheating behind the scenes to keep hold of his title. After you beat him, and expose the Glitz Pit's boss Macho Grubba's own dirty dealings, Rawk Hawk decided to go clean and earn the title fair and square, becoming a friendly ally to you afterwards and even taking on Bowser for you (though he loses quickly).

As you might expect, Rawk Hawk is heavily based on real life wrestlers and most of his moves on real wrestling moves, though of course with more of a cartoony flair to them. Rawk Hawk's moves include a sliding kick across the ground, a move where he flips himself through the air at you, a move where he flies through the air and divebombs you, and a move where he stomps the ground hard enough to bring the rafters down low enough to grab them, and he can then shake them and drop items from the ceiling on top of you. There are a few other moves implied outside of the battle, such as the suplex he attempts on Bowser, and of course the items he cheats with, like the poisoned cake.

Here's the moveset I came up with:

Standard B: Aerial Spin

He will flip slightly into the air and spin into his opponent, somewhat similar to Sonic's homing attack, though not as fast I'd imagine.

Side B: Divebomb

He will flip himself into the air and fly across the stage a short distance with his elbow forward in a divebombing aerial maneuver.

Up B: Rafters

So his big attack from the game has kind of been split up between these two (I figured the sliding kick could be a standard move just fine on its own). Basically a set of rafters will appear above Rawk and he will leap up to them. They will then carry him upwards for a short time. He can leap from them in a diving kick maneuver.

Down B: Drop Attack

This is the other half of his special move. He will stomp on the ground hard, hard enough that a large bucket like from the game will appear in the air a few feet ahead of him and fall, striking anyone unlucky enough to be underneath.

Final Smash: Macho Hawk

So, this is kind of borrowed from the chapter as a whole, but as he was one of the starring faces of the chapter and wore the belt that drained and/or gave the power, it works just fine. Macho Grubba's machine will power him up and he will grow larger and start to glow. He will then unleash a flurry of attacks not unlike Donkey Kong's and Little Mac's.

Entrance: He will drop down from the rafters amid cheers.

Taunts: Sticking his index and pinky up in the air the way he often did in the game, lifting a weight, any number of his trash-talking spiels from the game, so on.

Thanks for reading! Next up, we'll cover Francis, the nerdy chameleon from Super Paper Mario!