You guys are all haters. The wrestling tiger looks badass and that's that (it's definitely a tiger and not a "thing", Sky - even the katakana in the corner says "tiger 3" in Japanese.)
He looks like he could totally suplex a train.
Seriously though, it does remind me of Sabin and that's possibly one of the best things a Pokemon could remind me of.
And here someone is using the exact same reasoning as me as to why it's fire/dark: