original kinnikuman is basically revered as a classic anime (hence the revival manga and new anime this summer) but nisei is a little bit more divisive although the first nisei manga did well enough to get a sequel. the problem was that nisei originally ran in a magazine that was basically playboy and had a lot of raunchy content, but when they adapted it to a anime they decided to air it as a shounen aimed at a younger audience like the original kinnikuman was. they did some changes to tone it down and essentially turned into a generic children’s anime, when the manga audience was adults.

4kids on the other hand absolutely embraced the campiness, which is exactly what the anime needed because it’s a fantasy wrestling show where the main character has weaponized his farts during several matches. they still made heavy localization edits such as removing nearly all japanese writing, but a lot of it turned was for the better. it helps that the dub was also overseen by eric stuart, who voiced brock, james, and seto kaiba in the 4kids dub.