I'd never heard of the controversy - about to watch the video!

But I wanted to point out that Double Dragon definitely pre-dates Final Fight.

I always loved that Hagar in Final Fight was Metro City's MAYOR. I bet he saves the city a lot of money on police overtime.

You're correct, hence the "essentially" qualifier. Technically beat 'em ups existed before Final Fight (River City Rampage existed before either of those games), but it wasn't until Capcom's game that the genre became codified and started churning out endless amounts of derivative cash-ins.

My comment here would be that being transgender doesn't mean one is not "100% female." =)