1) Kart Fighter, an NES ROM. It was a fan-made Street Fighter 2 clone using Super Mario Kart characters. People say that influenced Nintendo into putting their characters into a fighting game.
The designers for Smash say the idea of knocking your opponent out of the ring was based on Sumo Wrestling.
2) Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble was pretty close to SSBM, I believe. Didn't sell too well though.
I think it's because the Smash Bros formula is too unique to copy. Smash is really platformer + fighter with a ton of fan service slopped on. Few companies do platformers or fighters, and even fewer have the cast to pull this off. Capcom maybe, but they tried with Red Hot Rumble.
Halo's an FPS and Pokemon is an RPG (I'm getting get shot for those simplifications.) Vastly easier to read the underlying blueprints of each game.
There is no such thing as a console war. This is the first step to game design.
