'Beat'em ups' and sometimes called 'Brawlers' or 'Brawl'.
When reading your main post, I was thinking of a game called 'Crime Fighters'. I use to play it at our local Wal-Mart when they use to have coin-ops in the breeze way. I think you can get brass knuckles in that game but I can't remember. I'll have to check it out sometime. Been a while since I played it.
