Powerful people from all over the world entered, including the current SWF heavyweight champion and some ferocious wrestlers from the dark underground professional wrestling organization "Hole of the Lion".

[19] In North America, RePlay reported 3 Count Bout to be the fourth most-popular arcade game in April 1993.

[23][24][25][26][27] AllGame's Paul Biondich noted its attempt at mixing of fighting styles from game such as WWF WrestleFest and Street Fighter II, however, Kyle Knight stated that 3 Count Bout has an "identity crisis" due to this and regarded the controls as decent during fighting mode but poorly implemented during wrestling mode.

[4][5] In contrast, Consoles Plus' Marc Menier and Jean-Loup Jovanovic praised the presentation, visuals, sprite animations, sound design, playability and two-player mode.

[6] However, GameFan's four reviewers commended the graphical presentation but criticized the limited sprite animation, controls and gameplay mechanics, with Sgt.

[7] GamePro's Scary Larry praised the visuals for being up to standards on Neo Geo and sound design but criticized the controls for being stiff and difficult opponent AI.

[9] Likewise, Joypad's Nourdine Nini and Jean-François Morisse gave positive remarks to the number of moves for each character, graphics, animations controls and sound design but criticized the gameplay for being repetitive.

[10] In a similar manner as Larry, Mega Fun's Philipp Noak and Ulf Schneider criticized the AI opponent for being unfair but gave positive comments to the technical presentation, number of moves and two-player mode.

[11] Player One's Christophe Delpierre praised the animated visuals, sound, difficulty and longevity but felt mixed in regards to the gameplay.

[13][14] Play Time's Armin Thielen highly commended the title for the technical and audiovisual presentation, as well as its difficulty level.