I would; he can't breath without a respirator, which, where I live at least, counts him as being "crippled".
Also, Not sure if I should count Jax in here; dudes missing his arms, but he kinda has big metal ones....
That's still quite a quite a stretch. Disability is a social label for people who need more accommodations because their medical condition is debilitating enough to keep them from functioning in normal society. Kabal appears to able to get around on his own and doesn't need anybody to tinker with the respirator device for him.
Cybernetic enhancements that effectively replace or even exceed human performance is not something we should get into, not to mention they are a quite common in video games.
True, it more than likely was. But how many other fighting games have this element of diversity?
Scratch that, how many GAMES have this element of diversity?
In the grand scheme of things, I don't see how this would matter... other than a petty attempt at one-upping other games. Seriously, they are not trying raise awareness of these disabilities by any means. They are superficial representations of their said disabilities at best when there is little indication of any challenges they must go through.
However, for the sake of argument, I'll add a list of physically disabled characters (and their respective games) that I am aware of . Licensed characters like Professor X are not included. Mental disabilities are harder to define, so I'll leave them out for now.
1. Zato-1: Guilty Gear
2. Baiken: Guilty Gear
3. Barazock: Fighter's Impact
4. Voldo: Soul Edge
5. Xiao Long: Mace
6. Lara: Chrono Trigger
7. The End: Metal Gear Solid 3
8. Castile: Phantom Brave
9. Kizami: Shinobi (2002)
10. Demon Hunters: Warcraft 3
11. Bentley: Sly Cooper