![WCWNitroBook's tweet photo. The relationship between video games and professional wrestling is explored in a special chapter of BEYOND NITRO, the new book from @GuyEvansBooks. See below for an excerpt - and RT please!
Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
CHAPTER 18: REVENGE
(Excerpt)
With the new millennium imminent, an array of cultural critics reflected on the unquestioned ascendance of video games, an entertainment medium that appeared – as evidenced by the technological evolutions of the prior decade – to be evolving rather rapidly. Despite still being discounted in some quarters, the gaming industry had quickly become a behemoth, easily surpassing the film industry in terms of total revenues. In the process, numerous video games emerged as defining cultural touchstones for an entire generation. “We were the first generation to grow up on video games,” notes the TNA wrestler @TheSamiCallihan. “Our generation is a completely different generation of human beings…we didn’t [think], ‘Oh, we want to be rock stars,’ or, ‘We want to be out every night of the week.’ We’re all nerds.”
The proliferation of video games had several notable effects, including – among other things – the transmission of game-specific culture around the globe. In admittedly asymmetrical fashion (given the preeminence of a relatively small number of regional gaming powerhouses), the success of top titles transcended national boundaries – in a way that few other diversions approached. With no appreciable language barrier, and similarly aided by the promotion of universal storytelling themes, the video game business became a “homogeneous phenomenon,” according to a study published in the International Journal of Communication, “hovering weightlessly in a culturally undefined space, independent of local contexts.”
Thus an intriguing scenario developed wherein a prominent video game, like WCW/nWo Revenge – designed in the United States and developed in Japan – appealed, on a simultaneous basis, to players all over the world. While one group of teenagers could be up and enjoying a multiplayer tournament in, say, Minneapolis one Friday night, a parallel group of gamers, perhaps based in London, could be winding down their own marathon event at five o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in Athens, Greece, a solitary N64 user, his eyes half asleep at seven o’clock local time, could be about to start his own game – a pile of pesky homework going unnoticed on the floor. Connecting them all, of course, was a common language – not English – but that of video games.
A similar effect played out as far as Australia, recalls the Perth-based wrestler and podcaster @KarliforniaNWO. "Something that was incredibly important was the video games,” he explains. “WCW/nWo World Tour, WCW/nWo Revenge, and [later] WrestleMania 2000. The video games were extremely important because you’d have sleepovers, where some of your friends might not even watch wrestling, but they would get familiar with the characters that people [chose and played with]…and then they’d end up watching! That’s how a lot of people became fans, because they would recognize the people they chose in the video game on the actual screen.”
In one of the interesting (and now, rather quaint) quirks of the early Internet era, American cultural trends tended to ‘travel’, relative to their ability to resonate with people overseas, on a perceptible delay of sorts – often with a ‘gap’ of numerous months (or even years) at a time. “Because of the Monday Night Wars,” remembers Infirri, “wrestling had started to get hot [domestically] in ‘96 to early ‘97. It took us a couple of years to catch up… [in general], Australia was always far behind the United States with things.
“For example, we would get Raw and Nitro on Foxtel, the provider that had the channels for wrestling. The shows that aired on Foxtel would usually be about six to eight weeks late, so we would always be one or two months behind what was actually happening.
“That changed once it got popular enough to have the shows ‘fast tracked’ to Australia quicker. At that point, we got Raw the day that it happened, and Nitro the week that it happened.
“[But] 1998 was the year when it really hit [in Australia]. I could go into my local Kmart, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target…and there wasn’t just a couple of shelves [devoted to wrestling], it was a whole row. A whole row dedicated to wrestling figurines, replica titles, T-shirts, merch…
“The whole aisle would have WCW and WWF products – all the way down. Everywhere you went, there were ‘Austin 3:16’ shirts and nWo shirts – everywhere you went. And this is in an isolated city – Perth.
“If it’s big in such an isolated city,” continues Infirri, “that means something. That means it’s huge – it’s pop culture. It was so popular that we all started doing backyard wrestling. It was massive. In our metropolitan area, there were four backyard wrestling groups at one time, and there might have been more that we just never discovered. I know it was quite prevalent over on the East Coast of Australia as well.”
Infirri’s testimony speaks to an underrated phenomenon that occurred – both domestically and, as indicated, internationally – in concert with the ‘90s wrestling boom. Specifically, the impact of THQ’s wrestling titles was such that the games concurrently created two cooperative circumstances. Firstly, existing fans were provided with an outlet for their fandom that had existed previously, but not in the same realistic (and enjoyable) manner as now was possible. Secondly, potential fans – perhaps those possessing no previous affinity for (or awareness of) the wrestling business – were provided with a fun, accessible and highly social method of familiarizing themselves with the genre. To play as La Parka on WCW/nWo Revenge, for example, created a natural compulsion – on the part of the non-fan – to witness the real ‘Skull Captain’ on a subsequent episode of Nitro. “There was a ton of overlap,” confirms Dave Hoffman, a former THQ producer. “The demographics of those in attendance at the live wrestling events matched perfectly with our target market for the game.”
“First off, I completely agree with the thesis,” begins Evan Husney, co-creator of the popular @DarkSideOfRing series, in reference to the notion that the THQ titles expanded the wrestling fanbase. “The launch of those games really coincided with the early years of the N64, and obviously, that was a revolutionary game system that came out and just took over everything. The popularity of the launch title Mario 64 and Goldeneye (007) was ubiquitous across households in North America…and beyond! Everybody was playing that stuff.
“For me, personally…I was sort of that classic definition of a @TheLapsedFan. I was a young ‘Hulkamaniac’ in that 1990-sort of era in the WWF. I went to the events as a young kid, was a big fan of Sergeant Slaughter, Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and the Hasbro action figures…but by the mid ‘90s, I hadn’t really kept up with wrestling. A lot of people dipped out [at that point].
“But those games…I remember when WCW vs. nWo: World Tour came out. I picked up a copy, and I was instantly hooked. I vividly remember being in my parents’ basement and going through the roster of the different wrestlers you could choose. Obviously, I remembered Hulk Hogan and guys like Randy Savage from when I was a little kid, but I thought, ‘Wait. They’re in different colors and they’re in different uniforms. Why is that?’
“Then I started looking at all these other wrestlers that I [wasn’t] familiar with. I remember being like, ‘Who’s Chris Benoite?’ So in trying to figure it out, I played the game so much that eventually, it did lead to me checking out what was happening on television. 100% – that’s what led me to engage and watch wrestling again.
“Then I started making the connections…figuring out who Scott Hall was, or who Kevin Nash was, just by the recognition of who they were in this game. Soon I was hooked on [the actual show]. Living in Minneapolis – a big wrestling hotspot – WCW came through very regularly. I ended up going to all the Nitros that were there, and I really became a WCW fan – first and foremost, because of the [THQ] games.
“When Revenge came out, it was a total game-changer,” continues Husney. “It was ‘next level’ and [simply] amazing. I had sleepovers with friends where we would play the game all night. We would ‘book’ our own pay-per-views [during the sleepovers]. We would put together all the matches – who was going to play who – and while I don’t exactly remember the technology that I had…there was a way that I could record the matches on to the VCR, and then somehow do commentary [over it] with our voices! We would be like, ‘Okay – this is gonna be Uncensored ‘99,’ or whatever. We would put on all our matches with our little kid commentary, and I have very fond memories of doing that with my friends growing up.”
“I’ve always believed,” opines @RealBryanB, owner and operator of @WCWWorldwide – a popular, WCW-themed retrospective website – “that the series of wrestling video games that came from AKI/THQ for the Nintendo 64 were essential in creating a whole new base of younger wrestling fans.
“…When WCW vs nWo: World Tour was released in late 1997, it was seemingly something of an unexpected sleeper-hit. Reading reviews from that period, you can see a pattern of reviewers specifically trying to break through a certain message to the reader: Yes, wrestling is fake and hokey – but you have to play this game.
“And they were right. There was a simplicity with World Tour that allowed anyone to step into the ring and enjoy it as a multiplayer action/sports game. The game was an absolute blast to play, filled with unique characters with various wrestling styles that was an inviting package to anyone who tried it out. Having a system with four-controller plugs built into the console itself was a godsend for easily creating late-night multiplayer mayhem with your friends. For the hardcore wrestling enthusiast, you finally had a game that recreated your obsession beautifully with its detailed move animations. [But] no previous knowledge of Sting or the nWo was needed to enjoy World Tour.
“World Tour would get a Player’s Choice reissue and be placed on a pedestal by Nintendo themselves alongside other gaming giants like Super Smash Bros. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There was no better wrestling video game in America until the follow-up was released a year later: WCW/nWo Revenge.
“Revenge improved the World Tour formula but also completely overhauled the presentation to fully represent the Nitro era of WCW, something lacking from its predecessor. You could now wrestle in several different PPV arenas or on a Monday Nitro stage that all attempted to faithfully recreate their real broadcast counterparts. The roster pared down the number of original characters found in World Tour in favor of actual WCW wrestlers you’d see on weekly television. A wrestler edit mode was added so that you could potentially keep up with the never-ending recruitment of new members of the New World Order. This was a game that was polished and set to become a major success right out the gate with Nintendo Power reviewing WCW/nWo Revenge higher than the original Pokémon Blue/Red for the Game Boy (8.1 vs. 7.2), [for example].
“Speaking from personal experience, I had several friends who would become temporary wrestling diehards through WCW vs nWo: World Tour. The nWo and D-Generation X shirts had already started to infiltrate my middle school, but World Tour was converting more non-believers around me and convincing them to watch wrestling. WCW was already in a ratings boom during its Monday Night War with Raw, but this N64 title was an interactive gateway drug for us into this [rather] bizarre subculture. Maybe parents were hesitant to allow their children to watch simulated gang warfare between one man in mime face-paint versus an entire squad of black-and-white attired goons, but a video game? What’s the harm in that?”
“Before Revenge,” notes @briancagegmsi, a prominent wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), “there was obviously World Tour – which was great – but Revenge…that was the one. There were four of us…including my older brother, my best friend Stephen and my good friend, Jamie…that played it almost every weekend. We’d have a whole slumber party deal where we’d play games and watch movies and stuff…but Revenge was the main game. We’d always do the 40-man battle royale, and we’d make it ‘pinfall elimination’ so it’d last all night long. We spent so many hours on that game.”
For Cage, the game brings forth an additional wave of sentimentality, relative to his close friendship with Chris Klucsarits – aka WCW’s Chris Kanyon – who provided the inspiration for Cage’s subsequent career path. “Kanyon was the hidden character for the U.S. Title Tournament,” recalls the AEW star. “They made his character freaking awesome! Kanyon actually told me that the reason they put him there – and why they made his character extra cool – is because some of the creators were massive fans of his. His character had a bunch of cool moves – combo strikes and everything else – and they definitely made his character different.
“All throughout junior high and high school, it was the game.”
Even to this day, Cage enjoys assembling his squad for frequent Revenge tournaments. As a small part of the festivities accompanying his 40th birthday celebrations, for example, he held a special Revenge ‘invitational’ in a Las Vegas hotel suite. “The last few years,” he confirms, “we’ve had these giant parties at this giant suite here in Vegas…so it’s been a go-to staple for my entire life. We even made our own rankings which are all written down. Currently, I’m still the World Champion with Scott Norton!
“But it was a great game, and I loved the fact that the masses played Revenge. Whether you liked wrestling or not, you played it – and it made those [other] people get more into wrestling. It was such an easy ‘pick-up-and-play’ game, where if you didn’t have an idea of how to play, you learned pretty damn quick.”
“We ended up with games that had genuine crossover appeal,” agrees @Melonbread1979. “Wrestling fans who weren’t into video games would buy a Nintendo 64 just to play it…and video game fans who weren’t wrestling fans would buy it or play it, often becoming WCW fans in the process.”
“THQ was responsible for bringing the first great wrestling games to the US,” adds Justin Leeper, who went on to work for THQ on its WWE games during a later era. “They crafted realistic yet fun experiences that were a far cry from 16-bit button-mashy wrestling titles or Acclaim’s janky, over-complicated early PSone WWF games.
“WCW/nWo Revenge had such a unique style with smooth animations, fluid control and amazing four-player simultaneous action. The roster was extensive, and every wrestler had several outfits to pick. AKI’s engine allowed for unique gameplay in a variety of situations: on the apron, in the corner, when the opponent was sitting…I can still vividly picture the close-up angle as wrestlers ran to enter a Battle Royal!”
Just as it had captured the public’s imagination, Revenge ended up being a hit with the stars of the game themselves. In addition to receiving a generous fee in exchange for their participation (with some wrestlers, including Marcus ‘Buff’ Bagwell, receiving payments of up to $80,000 for the game), the stars of WCW and the nWo – particularly ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Goldberg and Booker T, among many others – enjoyed picking up the joystick to control their own fictional (fictional) selves. “I’ll never forget sitting with [Page] to do a commercial shoot for the game,” remembers Brad Lanoue, an intern with WCW during the last four months of 1998. “When the shoot was over, he just sat down with me on the couch – ‘cos they had a little setup [there] – and we just played the game…at least for an hour! That was really hard to come by back then…that you had a wrestler who would actually talk to you.”
Such was – and is – the power of Revenge.
The above is an excerpt of BEYOND NITRO by
@GuyEvansBooks, a collection of 23 (mostly) self-contained chapters on WCW, its historical significance, and continued nostalgic appeal. Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gs7b61XXgAAPBA-.jpg)
![WCWNitroBook's tweet photo. The relationship between video games and professional wrestling is explored in a special chapter of BEYOND NITRO, the new book from @GuyEvansBooks. See below for an excerpt - and RT please!
Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
CHAPTER 18: REVENGE
(Excerpt)
With the new millennium imminent, an array of cultural critics reflected on the unquestioned ascendance of video games, an entertainment medium that appeared – as evidenced by the technological evolutions of the prior decade – to be evolving rather rapidly. Despite still being discounted in some quarters, the gaming industry had quickly become a behemoth, easily surpassing the film industry in terms of total revenues. In the process, numerous video games emerged as defining cultural touchstones for an entire generation. “We were the first generation to grow up on video games,” notes the TNA wrestler @TheSamiCallihan. “Our generation is a completely different generation of human beings…we didn’t [think], ‘Oh, we want to be rock stars,’ or, ‘We want to be out every night of the week.’ We’re all nerds.”
The proliferation of video games had several notable effects, including – among other things – the transmission of game-specific culture around the globe. In admittedly asymmetrical fashion (given the preeminence of a relatively small number of regional gaming powerhouses), the success of top titles transcended national boundaries – in a way that few other diversions approached. With no appreciable language barrier, and similarly aided by the promotion of universal storytelling themes, the video game business became a “homogeneous phenomenon,” according to a study published in the International Journal of Communication, “hovering weightlessly in a culturally undefined space, independent of local contexts.”
Thus an intriguing scenario developed wherein a prominent video game, like WCW/nWo Revenge – designed in the United States and developed in Japan – appealed, on a simultaneous basis, to players all over the world. While one group of teenagers could be up and enjoying a multiplayer tournament in, say, Minneapolis one Friday night, a parallel group of gamers, perhaps based in London, could be winding down their own marathon event at five o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in Athens, Greece, a solitary N64 user, his eyes half asleep at seven o’clock local time, could be about to start his own game – a pile of pesky homework going unnoticed on the floor. Connecting them all, of course, was a common language – not English – but that of video games.
A similar effect played out as far as Australia, recalls the Perth-based wrestler and podcaster @KarliforniaNWO. "Something that was incredibly important was the video games,” he explains. “WCW/nWo World Tour, WCW/nWo Revenge, and [later] WrestleMania 2000. The video games were extremely important because you’d have sleepovers, where some of your friends might not even watch wrestling, but they would get familiar with the characters that people [chose and played with]…and then they’d end up watching! That’s how a lot of people became fans, because they would recognize the people they chose in the video game on the actual screen.”
In one of the interesting (and now, rather quaint) quirks of the early Internet era, American cultural trends tended to ‘travel’, relative to their ability to resonate with people overseas, on a perceptible delay of sorts – often with a ‘gap’ of numerous months (or even years) at a time. “Because of the Monday Night Wars,” remembers Infirri, “wrestling had started to get hot [domestically] in ‘96 to early ‘97. It took us a couple of years to catch up… [in general], Australia was always far behind the United States with things.
“For example, we would get Raw and Nitro on Foxtel, the provider that had the channels for wrestling. The shows that aired on Foxtel would usually be about six to eight weeks late, so we would always be one or two months behind what was actually happening.
“That changed once it got popular enough to have the shows ‘fast tracked’ to Australia quicker. At that point, we got Raw the day that it happened, and Nitro the week that it happened.
“[But] 1998 was the year when it really hit [in Australia]. I could go into my local Kmart, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target…and there wasn’t just a couple of shelves [devoted to wrestling], it was a whole row. A whole row dedicated to wrestling figurines, replica titles, T-shirts, merch…
“The whole aisle would have WCW and WWF products – all the way down. Everywhere you went, there were ‘Austin 3:16’ shirts and nWo shirts – everywhere you went. And this is in an isolated city – Perth.
“If it’s big in such an isolated city,” continues Infirri, “that means something. That means it’s huge – it’s pop culture. It was so popular that we all started doing backyard wrestling. It was massive. In our metropolitan area, there were four backyard wrestling groups at one time, and there might have been more that we just never discovered. I know it was quite prevalent over on the East Coast of Australia as well.”
Infirri’s testimony speaks to an underrated phenomenon that occurred – both domestically and, as indicated, internationally – in concert with the ‘90s wrestling boom. Specifically, the impact of THQ’s wrestling titles was such that the games concurrently created two cooperative circumstances. Firstly, existing fans were provided with an outlet for their fandom that had existed previously, but not in the same realistic (and enjoyable) manner as now was possible. Secondly, potential fans – perhaps those possessing no previous affinity for (or awareness of) the wrestling business – were provided with a fun, accessible and highly social method of familiarizing themselves with the genre. To play as La Parka on WCW/nWo Revenge, for example, created a natural compulsion – on the part of the non-fan – to witness the real ‘Skull Captain’ on a subsequent episode of Nitro. “There was a ton of overlap,” confirms Dave Hoffman, a former THQ producer. “The demographics of those in attendance at the live wrestling events matched perfectly with our target market for the game.”
“First off, I completely agree with the thesis,” begins Evan Husney, co-creator of the popular @DarkSideOfRing series, in reference to the notion that the THQ titles expanded the wrestling fanbase. “The launch of those games really coincided with the early years of the N64, and obviously, that was a revolutionary game system that came out and just took over everything. The popularity of the launch title Mario 64 and Goldeneye (007) was ubiquitous across households in North America…and beyond! Everybody was playing that stuff.
“For me, personally…I was sort of that classic definition of a @TheLapsedFan. I was a young ‘Hulkamaniac’ in that 1990-sort of era in the WWF. I went to the events as a young kid, was a big fan of Sergeant Slaughter, Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and the Hasbro action figures…but by the mid ‘90s, I hadn’t really kept up with wrestling. A lot of people dipped out [at that point].
“But those games…I remember when WCW vs. nWo: World Tour came out. I picked up a copy, and I was instantly hooked. I vividly remember being in my parents’ basement and going through the roster of the different wrestlers you could choose. Obviously, I remembered Hulk Hogan and guys like Randy Savage from when I was a little kid, but I thought, ‘Wait. They’re in different colors and they’re in different uniforms. Why is that?’
“Then I started looking at all these other wrestlers that I [wasn’t] familiar with. I remember being like, ‘Who’s Chris Benoite?’ So in trying to figure it out, I played the game so much that eventually, it did lead to me checking out what was happening on television. 100% – that’s what led me to engage and watch wrestling again.
“Then I started making the connections…figuring out who Scott Hall was, or who Kevin Nash was, just by the recognition of who they were in this game. Soon I was hooked on [the actual show]. Living in Minneapolis – a big wrestling hotspot – WCW came through very regularly. I ended up going to all the Nitros that were there, and I really became a WCW fan – first and foremost, because of the [THQ] games.
“When Revenge came out, it was a total game-changer,” continues Husney. “It was ‘next level’ and [simply] amazing. I had sleepovers with friends where we would play the game all night. We would ‘book’ our own pay-per-views [during the sleepovers]. We would put together all the matches – who was going to play who – and while I don’t exactly remember the technology that I had…there was a way that I could record the matches on to the VCR, and then somehow do commentary [over it] with our voices! We would be like, ‘Okay – this is gonna be Uncensored ‘99,’ or whatever. We would put on all our matches with our little kid commentary, and I have very fond memories of doing that with my friends growing up.”
“I’ve always believed,” opines @RealBryanB, owner and operator of @WCWWorldwide – a popular, WCW-themed retrospective website – “that the series of wrestling video games that came from AKI/THQ for the Nintendo 64 were essential in creating a whole new base of younger wrestling fans.
“…When WCW vs nWo: World Tour was released in late 1997, it was seemingly something of an unexpected sleeper-hit. Reading reviews from that period, you can see a pattern of reviewers specifically trying to break through a certain message to the reader: Yes, wrestling is fake and hokey – but you have to play this game.
“And they were right. There was a simplicity with World Tour that allowed anyone to step into the ring and enjoy it as a multiplayer action/sports game. The game was an absolute blast to play, filled with unique characters with various wrestling styles that was an inviting package to anyone who tried it out. Having a system with four-controller plugs built into the console itself was a godsend for easily creating late-night multiplayer mayhem with your friends. For the hardcore wrestling enthusiast, you finally had a game that recreated your obsession beautifully with its detailed move animations. [But] no previous knowledge of Sting or the nWo was needed to enjoy World Tour.
“World Tour would get a Player’s Choice reissue and be placed on a pedestal by Nintendo themselves alongside other gaming giants like Super Smash Bros. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There was no better wrestling video game in America until the follow-up was released a year later: WCW/nWo Revenge.
“Revenge improved the World Tour formula but also completely overhauled the presentation to fully represent the Nitro era of WCW, something lacking from its predecessor. You could now wrestle in several different PPV arenas or on a Monday Nitro stage that all attempted to faithfully recreate their real broadcast counterparts. The roster pared down the number of original characters found in World Tour in favor of actual WCW wrestlers you’d see on weekly television. A wrestler edit mode was added so that you could potentially keep up with the never-ending recruitment of new members of the New World Order. This was a game that was polished and set to become a major success right out the gate with Nintendo Power reviewing WCW/nWo Revenge higher than the original Pokémon Blue/Red for the Game Boy (8.1 vs. 7.2), [for example].
“Speaking from personal experience, I had several friends who would become temporary wrestling diehards through WCW vs nWo: World Tour. The nWo and D-Generation X shirts had already started to infiltrate my middle school, but World Tour was converting more non-believers around me and convincing them to watch wrestling. WCW was already in a ratings boom during its Monday Night War with Raw, but this N64 title was an interactive gateway drug for us into this [rather] bizarre subculture. Maybe parents were hesitant to allow their children to watch simulated gang warfare between one man in mime face-paint versus an entire squad of black-and-white attired goons, but a video game? What’s the harm in that?”
“Before Revenge,” notes @briancagegmsi, a prominent wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), “there was obviously World Tour – which was great – but Revenge…that was the one. There were four of us…including my older brother, my best friend Stephen and my good friend, Jamie…that played it almost every weekend. We’d have a whole slumber party deal where we’d play games and watch movies and stuff…but Revenge was the main game. We’d always do the 40-man battle royale, and we’d make it ‘pinfall elimination’ so it’d last all night long. We spent so many hours on that game.”
For Cage, the game brings forth an additional wave of sentimentality, relative to his close friendship with Chris Klucsarits – aka WCW’s Chris Kanyon – who provided the inspiration for Cage’s subsequent career path. “Kanyon was the hidden character for the U.S. Title Tournament,” recalls the AEW star. “They made his character freaking awesome! Kanyon actually told me that the reason they put him there – and why they made his character extra cool – is because some of the creators were massive fans of his. His character had a bunch of cool moves – combo strikes and everything else – and they definitely made his character different.
“All throughout junior high and high school, it was the game.”
Even to this day, Cage enjoys assembling his squad for frequent Revenge tournaments. As a small part of the festivities accompanying his 40th birthday celebrations, for example, he held a special Revenge ‘invitational’ in a Las Vegas hotel suite. “The last few years,” he confirms, “we’ve had these giant parties at this giant suite here in Vegas…so it’s been a go-to staple for my entire life. We even made our own rankings which are all written down. Currently, I’m still the World Champion with Scott Norton!
“But it was a great game, and I loved the fact that the masses played Revenge. Whether you liked wrestling or not, you played it – and it made those [other] people get more into wrestling. It was such an easy ‘pick-up-and-play’ game, where if you didn’t have an idea of how to play, you learned pretty damn quick.”
“We ended up with games that had genuine crossover appeal,” agrees @Melonbread1979. “Wrestling fans who weren’t into video games would buy a Nintendo 64 just to play it…and video game fans who weren’t wrestling fans would buy it or play it, often becoming WCW fans in the process.”
“THQ was responsible for bringing the first great wrestling games to the US,” adds Justin Leeper, who went on to work for THQ on its WWE games during a later era. “They crafted realistic yet fun experiences that were a far cry from 16-bit button-mashy wrestling titles or Acclaim’s janky, over-complicated early PSone WWF games.
“WCW/nWo Revenge had such a unique style with smooth animations, fluid control and amazing four-player simultaneous action. The roster was extensive, and every wrestler had several outfits to pick. AKI’s engine allowed for unique gameplay in a variety of situations: on the apron, in the corner, when the opponent was sitting…I can still vividly picture the close-up angle as wrestlers ran to enter a Battle Royal!”
Just as it had captured the public’s imagination, Revenge ended up being a hit with the stars of the game themselves. In addition to receiving a generous fee in exchange for their participation (with some wrestlers, including Marcus ‘Buff’ Bagwell, receiving payments of up to $80,000 for the game), the stars of WCW and the nWo – particularly ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Goldberg and Booker T, among many others – enjoyed picking up the joystick to control their own fictional (fictional) selves. “I’ll never forget sitting with [Page] to do a commercial shoot for the game,” remembers Brad Lanoue, an intern with WCW during the last four months of 1998. “When the shoot was over, he just sat down with me on the couch – ‘cos they had a little setup [there] – and we just played the game…at least for an hour! That was really hard to come by back then…that you had a wrestler who would actually talk to you.”
Such was – and is – the power of Revenge.
The above is an excerpt of BEYOND NITRO by
@GuyEvansBooks, a collection of 23 (mostly) self-contained chapters on WCW, its historical significance, and continued nostalgic appeal. Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gs7b6MTW8AA_yo2.jpg)
![WCWNitroBook's tweet photo. The relationship between video games and professional wrestling is explored in a special chapter of BEYOND NITRO, the new book from @GuyEvansBooks. See below for an excerpt - and RT please!
Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
CHAPTER 18: REVENGE
(Excerpt)
With the new millennium imminent, an array of cultural critics reflected on the unquestioned ascendance of video games, an entertainment medium that appeared – as evidenced by the technological evolutions of the prior decade – to be evolving rather rapidly. Despite still being discounted in some quarters, the gaming industry had quickly become a behemoth, easily surpassing the film industry in terms of total revenues. In the process, numerous video games emerged as defining cultural touchstones for an entire generation. “We were the first generation to grow up on video games,” notes the TNA wrestler @TheSamiCallihan. “Our generation is a completely different generation of human beings…we didn’t [think], ‘Oh, we want to be rock stars,’ or, ‘We want to be out every night of the week.’ We’re all nerds.”
The proliferation of video games had several notable effects, including – among other things – the transmission of game-specific culture around the globe. In admittedly asymmetrical fashion (given the preeminence of a relatively small number of regional gaming powerhouses), the success of top titles transcended national boundaries – in a way that few other diversions approached. With no appreciable language barrier, and similarly aided by the promotion of universal storytelling themes, the video game business became a “homogeneous phenomenon,” according to a study published in the International Journal of Communication, “hovering weightlessly in a culturally undefined space, independent of local contexts.”
Thus an intriguing scenario developed wherein a prominent video game, like WCW/nWo Revenge – designed in the United States and developed in Japan – appealed, on a simultaneous basis, to players all over the world. While one group of teenagers could be up and enjoying a multiplayer tournament in, say, Minneapolis one Friday night, a parallel group of gamers, perhaps based in London, could be winding down their own marathon event at five o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in Athens, Greece, a solitary N64 user, his eyes half asleep at seven o’clock local time, could be about to start his own game – a pile of pesky homework going unnoticed on the floor. Connecting them all, of course, was a common language – not English – but that of video games.
A similar effect played out as far as Australia, recalls the Perth-based wrestler and podcaster @KarliforniaNWO. "Something that was incredibly important was the video games,” he explains. “WCW/nWo World Tour, WCW/nWo Revenge, and [later] WrestleMania 2000. The video games were extremely important because you’d have sleepovers, where some of your friends might not even watch wrestling, but they would get familiar with the characters that people [chose and played with]…and then they’d end up watching! That’s how a lot of people became fans, because they would recognize the people they chose in the video game on the actual screen.”
In one of the interesting (and now, rather quaint) quirks of the early Internet era, American cultural trends tended to ‘travel’, relative to their ability to resonate with people overseas, on a perceptible delay of sorts – often with a ‘gap’ of numerous months (or even years) at a time. “Because of the Monday Night Wars,” remembers Infirri, “wrestling had started to get hot [domestically] in ‘96 to early ‘97. It took us a couple of years to catch up… [in general], Australia was always far behind the United States with things.
“For example, we would get Raw and Nitro on Foxtel, the provider that had the channels for wrestling. The shows that aired on Foxtel would usually be about six to eight weeks late, so we would always be one or two months behind what was actually happening.
“That changed once it got popular enough to have the shows ‘fast tracked’ to Australia quicker. At that point, we got Raw the day that it happened, and Nitro the week that it happened.
“[But] 1998 was the year when it really hit [in Australia]. I could go into my local Kmart, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target…and there wasn’t just a couple of shelves [devoted to wrestling], it was a whole row. A whole row dedicated to wrestling figurines, replica titles, T-shirts, merch…
“The whole aisle would have WCW and WWF products – all the way down. Everywhere you went, there were ‘Austin 3:16’ shirts and nWo shirts – everywhere you went. And this is in an isolated city – Perth.
“If it’s big in such an isolated city,” continues Infirri, “that means something. That means it’s huge – it’s pop culture. It was so popular that we all started doing backyard wrestling. It was massive. In our metropolitan area, there were four backyard wrestling groups at one time, and there might have been more that we just never discovered. I know it was quite prevalent over on the East Coast of Australia as well.”
Infirri’s testimony speaks to an underrated phenomenon that occurred – both domestically and, as indicated, internationally – in concert with the ‘90s wrestling boom. Specifically, the impact of THQ’s wrestling titles was such that the games concurrently created two cooperative circumstances. Firstly, existing fans were provided with an outlet for their fandom that had existed previously, but not in the same realistic (and enjoyable) manner as now was possible. Secondly, potential fans – perhaps those possessing no previous affinity for (or awareness of) the wrestling business – were provided with a fun, accessible and highly social method of familiarizing themselves with the genre. To play as La Parka on WCW/nWo Revenge, for example, created a natural compulsion – on the part of the non-fan – to witness the real ‘Skull Captain’ on a subsequent episode of Nitro. “There was a ton of overlap,” confirms Dave Hoffman, a former THQ producer. “The demographics of those in attendance at the live wrestling events matched perfectly with our target market for the game.”
“First off, I completely agree with the thesis,” begins Evan Husney, co-creator of the popular @DarkSideOfRing series, in reference to the notion that the THQ titles expanded the wrestling fanbase. “The launch of those games really coincided with the early years of the N64, and obviously, that was a revolutionary game system that came out and just took over everything. The popularity of the launch title Mario 64 and Goldeneye (007) was ubiquitous across households in North America…and beyond! Everybody was playing that stuff.
“For me, personally…I was sort of that classic definition of a @TheLapsedFan. I was a young ‘Hulkamaniac’ in that 1990-sort of era in the WWF. I went to the events as a young kid, was a big fan of Sergeant Slaughter, Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and the Hasbro action figures…but by the mid ‘90s, I hadn’t really kept up with wrestling. A lot of people dipped out [at that point].
“But those games…I remember when WCW vs. nWo: World Tour came out. I picked up a copy, and I was instantly hooked. I vividly remember being in my parents’ basement and going through the roster of the different wrestlers you could choose. Obviously, I remembered Hulk Hogan and guys like Randy Savage from when I was a little kid, but I thought, ‘Wait. They’re in different colors and they’re in different uniforms. Why is that?’
“Then I started looking at all these other wrestlers that I [wasn’t] familiar with. I remember being like, ‘Who’s Chris Benoite?’ So in trying to figure it out, I played the game so much that eventually, it did lead to me checking out what was happening on television. 100% – that’s what led me to engage and watch wrestling again.
“Then I started making the connections…figuring out who Scott Hall was, or who Kevin Nash was, just by the recognition of who they were in this game. Soon I was hooked on [the actual show]. Living in Minneapolis – a big wrestling hotspot – WCW came through very regularly. I ended up going to all the Nitros that were there, and I really became a WCW fan – first and foremost, because of the [THQ] games.
“When Revenge came out, it was a total game-changer,” continues Husney. “It was ‘next level’ and [simply] amazing. I had sleepovers with friends where we would play the game all night. We would ‘book’ our own pay-per-views [during the sleepovers]. We would put together all the matches – who was going to play who – and while I don’t exactly remember the technology that I had…there was a way that I could record the matches on to the VCR, and then somehow do commentary [over it] with our voices! We would be like, ‘Okay – this is gonna be Uncensored ‘99,’ or whatever. We would put on all our matches with our little kid commentary, and I have very fond memories of doing that with my friends growing up.”
“I’ve always believed,” opines @RealBryanB, owner and operator of @WCWWorldwide – a popular, WCW-themed retrospective website – “that the series of wrestling video games that came from AKI/THQ for the Nintendo 64 were essential in creating a whole new base of younger wrestling fans.
“…When WCW vs nWo: World Tour was released in late 1997, it was seemingly something of an unexpected sleeper-hit. Reading reviews from that period, you can see a pattern of reviewers specifically trying to break through a certain message to the reader: Yes, wrestling is fake and hokey – but you have to play this game.
“And they were right. There was a simplicity with World Tour that allowed anyone to step into the ring and enjoy it as a multiplayer action/sports game. The game was an absolute blast to play, filled with unique characters with various wrestling styles that was an inviting package to anyone who tried it out. Having a system with four-controller plugs built into the console itself was a godsend for easily creating late-night multiplayer mayhem with your friends. For the hardcore wrestling enthusiast, you finally had a game that recreated your obsession beautifully with its detailed move animations. [But] no previous knowledge of Sting or the nWo was needed to enjoy World Tour.
“World Tour would get a Player’s Choice reissue and be placed on a pedestal by Nintendo themselves alongside other gaming giants like Super Smash Bros. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There was no better wrestling video game in America until the follow-up was released a year later: WCW/nWo Revenge.
“Revenge improved the World Tour formula but also completely overhauled the presentation to fully represent the Nitro era of WCW, something lacking from its predecessor. You could now wrestle in several different PPV arenas or on a Monday Nitro stage that all attempted to faithfully recreate their real broadcast counterparts. The roster pared down the number of original characters found in World Tour in favor of actual WCW wrestlers you’d see on weekly television. A wrestler edit mode was added so that you could potentially keep up with the never-ending recruitment of new members of the New World Order. This was a game that was polished and set to become a major success right out the gate with Nintendo Power reviewing WCW/nWo Revenge higher than the original Pokémon Blue/Red for the Game Boy (8.1 vs. 7.2), [for example].
“Speaking from personal experience, I had several friends who would become temporary wrestling diehards through WCW vs nWo: World Tour. The nWo and D-Generation X shirts had already started to infiltrate my middle school, but World Tour was converting more non-believers around me and convincing them to watch wrestling. WCW was already in a ratings boom during its Monday Night War with Raw, but this N64 title was an interactive gateway drug for us into this [rather] bizarre subculture. Maybe parents were hesitant to allow their children to watch simulated gang warfare between one man in mime face-paint versus an entire squad of black-and-white attired goons, but a video game? What’s the harm in that?”
“Before Revenge,” notes @briancagegmsi, a prominent wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), “there was obviously World Tour – which was great – but Revenge…that was the one. There were four of us…including my older brother, my best friend Stephen and my good friend, Jamie…that played it almost every weekend. We’d have a whole slumber party deal where we’d play games and watch movies and stuff…but Revenge was the main game. We’d always do the 40-man battle royale, and we’d make it ‘pinfall elimination’ so it’d last all night long. We spent so many hours on that game.”
For Cage, the game brings forth an additional wave of sentimentality, relative to his close friendship with Chris Klucsarits – aka WCW’s Chris Kanyon – who provided the inspiration for Cage’s subsequent career path. “Kanyon was the hidden character for the U.S. Title Tournament,” recalls the AEW star. “They made his character freaking awesome! Kanyon actually told me that the reason they put him there – and why they made his character extra cool – is because some of the creators were massive fans of his. His character had a bunch of cool moves – combo strikes and everything else – and they definitely made his character different.
“All throughout junior high and high school, it was the game.”
Even to this day, Cage enjoys assembling his squad for frequent Revenge tournaments. As a small part of the festivities accompanying his 40th birthday celebrations, for example, he held a special Revenge ‘invitational’ in a Las Vegas hotel suite. “The last few years,” he confirms, “we’ve had these giant parties at this giant suite here in Vegas…so it’s been a go-to staple for my entire life. We even made our own rankings which are all written down. Currently, I’m still the World Champion with Scott Norton!
“But it was a great game, and I loved the fact that the masses played Revenge. Whether you liked wrestling or not, you played it – and it made those [other] people get more into wrestling. It was such an easy ‘pick-up-and-play’ game, where if you didn’t have an idea of how to play, you learned pretty damn quick.”
“We ended up with games that had genuine crossover appeal,” agrees @Melonbread1979. “Wrestling fans who weren’t into video games would buy a Nintendo 64 just to play it…and video game fans who weren’t wrestling fans would buy it or play it, often becoming WCW fans in the process.”
“THQ was responsible for bringing the first great wrestling games to the US,” adds Justin Leeper, who went on to work for THQ on its WWE games during a later era. “They crafted realistic yet fun experiences that were a far cry from 16-bit button-mashy wrestling titles or Acclaim’s janky, over-complicated early PSone WWF games.
“WCW/nWo Revenge had such a unique style with smooth animations, fluid control and amazing four-player simultaneous action. The roster was extensive, and every wrestler had several outfits to pick. AKI’s engine allowed for unique gameplay in a variety of situations: on the apron, in the corner, when the opponent was sitting…I can still vividly picture the close-up angle as wrestlers ran to enter a Battle Royal!”
Just as it had captured the public’s imagination, Revenge ended up being a hit with the stars of the game themselves. In addition to receiving a generous fee in exchange for their participation (with some wrestlers, including Marcus ‘Buff’ Bagwell, receiving payments of up to $80,000 for the game), the stars of WCW and the nWo – particularly ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Goldberg and Booker T, among many others – enjoyed picking up the joystick to control their own fictional (fictional) selves. “I’ll never forget sitting with [Page] to do a commercial shoot for the game,” remembers Brad Lanoue, an intern with WCW during the last four months of 1998. “When the shoot was over, he just sat down with me on the couch – ‘cos they had a little setup [there] – and we just played the game…at least for an hour! That was really hard to come by back then…that you had a wrestler who would actually talk to you.”
Such was – and is – the power of Revenge.
The above is an excerpt of BEYOND NITRO by
@GuyEvansBooks, a collection of 23 (mostly) self-contained chapters on WCW, its historical significance, and continued nostalgic appeal. Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gs7b3yHXIAAf2cD.jpg)
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The relationship between video games and professional wrestling is explored in a special chapter of BEYOND NITRO, the new book from @GuyEvansBooks. See below for an excerpt - and RT please!
Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
CHAPTER 18: REVENGE
(Excerpt)
With the new millennium imminent, an array of cultural critics reflected on the unquestioned ascendance of video games, an entertainment medium that appeared – as evidenced by the technological evolutions of the prior decade – to be evolving rather rapidly. Despite still being discounted in some quarters, the gaming industry had quickly become a behemoth, easily surpassing the film industry in terms of total revenues. In the process, numerous video games emerged as defining cultural touchstones for an entire generation. “We were the first generation to grow up on video games,” notes the TNA wrestler @TheSamiCallihan. “Our generation is a completely different generation of human beings…we didn’t [think], ‘Oh, we want to be rock stars,’ or, ‘We want to be out every night of the week.’ We’re all nerds.”
The proliferation of video games had several notable effects, including – among other things – the transmission of game-specific culture around the globe. In admittedly asymmetrical fashion (given the preeminence of a relatively small number of regional gaming powerhouses), the success of top titles transcended national boundaries – in a way that few other diversions approached. With no appreciable language barrier, and similarly aided by the promotion of universal storytelling themes, the video game business became a “homogeneous phenomenon,” according to a study published in the International Journal of Communication, “hovering weightlessly in a culturally undefined space, independent of local contexts.”
Thus an intriguing scenario developed wherein a prominent video game, like WCW/nWo Revenge – designed in the United States and developed in Japan – appealed, on a simultaneous basis, to players all over the world. While one group of teenagers could be up and enjoying a multiplayer tournament in, say, Minneapolis one Friday night, a parallel group of gamers, perhaps based in London, could be winding down their own marathon event at five o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in Athens, Greece, a solitary N64 user, his eyes half asleep at seven o’clock local time, could be about to start his own game – a pile of pesky homework going unnoticed on the floor. Connecting them all, of course, was a common language – not English – but that of video games.
A similar effect played out as far as Australia, recalls the Perth-based wrestler and podcaster @KarliforniaNWO. "Something that was incredibly important was the video games,” he explains. “WCW/nWo World Tour, WCW/nWo Revenge, and [later] WrestleMania 2000. The video games were extremely important because you’d have sleepovers, where some of your friends might not even watch wrestling, but they would get familiar with the characters that people [chose and played with]…and then they’d end up watching! That’s how a lot of people became fans, because they would recognize the people they chose in the video game on the actual screen.”
In one of the interesting (and now, rather quaint) quirks of the early Internet era, American cultural trends tended to ‘travel’, relative to their ability to resonate with people overseas, on a perceptible delay of sorts – often with a ‘gap’ of numerous months (or even years) at a time. “Because of the Monday Night Wars,” remembers Infirri, “wrestling had started to get hot [domestically] in ‘96 to early ‘97. It took us a couple of years to catch up… [in general], Australia was always far behind the United States with things.
“For example, we would get Raw and Nitro on Foxtel, the provider that had the channels for wrestling. The shows that aired on Foxtel would usually be about six to eight weeks late, so we would always be one or two months behind what was actually happening.
“That changed once it got popular enough to have the shows ‘fast tracked’ to Australia quicker. At that point, we got Raw the day that it happened, and Nitro the week that it happened.
“[But] 1998 was the year when it really hit [in Australia]. I could go into my local Kmart, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target…and there wasn’t just a couple of shelves [devoted to wrestling], it was a whole row. A whole row dedicated to wrestling figurines, replica titles, T-shirts, merch…
“The whole aisle would have WCW and WWF products – all the way down. Everywhere you went, there were ‘Austin 3:16’ shirts and nWo shirts – everywhere you went. And this is in an isolated city – Perth.
“If it’s big in such an isolated city,” continues Infirri, “that means something. That means it’s huge – it’s pop culture. It was so popular that we all started doing backyard wrestling. It was massive. In our metropolitan area, there were four backyard wrestling groups at one time, and there might have been more that we just never discovered. I know it was quite prevalent over on the East Coast of Australia as well.”
Infirri’s testimony speaks to an underrated phenomenon that occurred – both domestically and, as indicated, internationally – in concert with the ‘90s wrestling boom. Specifically, the impact of THQ’s wrestling titles was such that the games concurrently created two cooperative circumstances. Firstly, existing fans were provided with an outlet for their fandom that had existed previously, but not in the same realistic (and enjoyable) manner as now was possible. Secondly, potential fans – perhaps those possessing no previous affinity for (or awareness of) the wrestling business – were provided with a fun, accessible and highly social method of familiarizing themselves with the genre. To play as La Parka on WCW/nWo Revenge, for example, created a natural compulsion – on the part of the non-fan – to witness the real ‘Skull Captain’ on a subsequent episode of Nitro. “There was a ton of overlap,” confirms Dave Hoffman, a former THQ producer. “The demographics of those in attendance at the live wrestling events matched perfectly with our target market for the game.”
“First off, I completely agree with the thesis,” begins Evan Husney, co-creator of the popular @DarkSideOfRing series, in reference to the notion that the THQ titles expanded the wrestling fanbase. “The launch of those games really coincided with the early years of the N64, and obviously, that was a revolutionary game system that came out and just took over everything. The popularity of the launch title Mario 64 and Goldeneye (007) was ubiquitous across households in North America…and beyond! Everybody was playing that stuff.
“For me, personally…I was sort of that classic definition of a @TheLapsedFan. I was a young ‘Hulkamaniac’ in that 1990-sort of era in the WWF. I went to the events as a young kid, was a big fan of Sergeant Slaughter, Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and the Hasbro action figures…but by the mid ‘90s, I hadn’t really kept up with wrestling. A lot of people dipped out [at that point].
“But those games…I remember when WCW vs. nWo: World Tour came out. I picked up a copy, and I was instantly hooked. I vividly remember being in my parents’ basement and going through the roster of the different wrestlers you could choose. Obviously, I remembered Hulk Hogan and guys like Randy Savage from when I was a little kid, but I thought, ‘Wait. They’re in different colors and they’re in different uniforms. Why is that?’
“Then I started looking at all these other wrestlers that I [wasn’t] familiar with. I remember being like, ‘Who’s Chris Benoite?’ So in trying to figure it out, I played the game so much that eventually, it did lead to me checking out what was happening on television. 100% – that’s what led me to engage and watch wrestling again.
“Then I started making the connections…figuring out who Scott Hall was, or who Kevin Nash was, just by the recognition of who they were in this game. Soon I was hooked on [the actual show]. Living in Minneapolis – a big wrestling hotspot – WCW came through very regularly. I ended up going to all the Nitros that were there, and I really became a WCW fan – first and foremost, because of the [THQ] games.
“When Revenge came out, it was a total game-changer,” continues Husney. “It was ‘next level’ and [simply] amazing. I had sleepovers with friends where we would play the game all night. We would ‘book’ our own pay-per-views [during the sleepovers]. We would put together all the matches – who was going to play who – and while I don’t exactly remember the technology that I had…there was a way that I could record the matches on to the VCR, and then somehow do commentary [over it] with our voices! We would be like, ‘Okay – this is gonna be Uncensored ‘99,’ or whatever. We would put on all our matches with our little kid commentary, and I have very fond memories of doing that with my friends growing up.”
“I’ve always believed,” opines @RealBryanB, owner and operator of @WCWWorldwide – a popular, WCW-themed retrospective website – “that the series of wrestling video games that came from AKI/THQ for the Nintendo 64 were essential in creating a whole new base of younger wrestling fans.
“…When WCW vs nWo: World Tour was released in late 1997, it was seemingly something of an unexpected sleeper-hit. Reading reviews from that period, you can see a pattern of reviewers specifically trying to break through a certain message to the reader: Yes, wrestling is fake and hokey – but you have to play this game.
“And they were right. There was a simplicity with World Tour that allowed anyone to step into the ring and enjoy it as a multiplayer action/sports game. The game was an absolute blast to play, filled with unique characters with various wrestling styles that was an inviting package to anyone who tried it out. Having a system with four-controller plugs built into the console itself was a godsend for easily creating late-night multiplayer mayhem with your friends. For the hardcore wrestling enthusiast, you finally had a game that recreated your obsession beautifully with its detailed move animations. [But] no previous knowledge of Sting or the nWo was needed to enjoy World Tour.
“World Tour would get a Player’s Choice reissue and be placed on a pedestal by Nintendo themselves alongside other gaming giants like Super Smash Bros. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There was no better wrestling video game in America until the follow-up was released a year later: WCW/nWo Revenge.
“Revenge improved the World Tour formula but also completely overhauled the presentation to fully represent the Nitro era of WCW, something lacking from its predecessor. You could now wrestle in several different PPV arenas or on a Monday Nitro stage that all attempted to faithfully recreate their real broadcast counterparts. The roster pared down the number of original characters found in World Tour in favor of actual WCW wrestlers you’d see on weekly television. A wrestler edit mode was added so that you could potentially keep up with the never-ending recruitment of new members of the New World Order. This was a game that was polished and set to become a major success right out the gate with Nintendo Power reviewing WCW/nWo Revenge higher than the original Pokémon Blue/Red for the Game Boy (8.1 vs. 7.2), [for example].
“Speaking from personal experience, I had several friends who would become temporary wrestling diehards through WCW vs nWo: World Tour. The nWo and D-Generation X shirts had already started to infiltrate my middle school, but World Tour was converting more non-believers around me and convincing them to watch wrestling. WCW was already in a ratings boom during its Monday Night War with Raw, but this N64 title was an interactive gateway drug for us into this [rather] bizarre subculture. Maybe parents were hesitant to allow their children to watch simulated gang warfare between one man in mime face-paint versus an entire squad of black-and-white attired goons, but a video game? What’s the harm in that?”
“Before Revenge,” notes @briancagegmsi, a prominent wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), “there was obviously World Tour – which was great – but Revenge…that was the one. There were four of us…including my older brother, my best friend Stephen and my good friend, Jamie…that played it almost every weekend. We’d have a whole slumber party deal where we’d play games and watch movies and stuff…but Revenge was the main game. We’d always do the 40-man battle royale, and we’d make it ‘pinfall elimination’ so it’d last all night long. We spent so many hours on that game.”
For Cage, the game brings forth an additional wave of sentimentality, relative to his close friendship with Chris Klucsarits – aka WCW’s Chris Kanyon – who provided the inspiration for Cage’s subsequent career path. “Kanyon was the hidden character for the U.S. Title Tournament,” recalls the AEW star. “They made his character freaking awesome! Kanyon actually told me that the reason they put him there – and why they made his character extra cool – is because some of the creators were massive fans of his. His character had a bunch of cool moves – combo strikes and everything else – and they definitely made his character different.
“All throughout junior high and high school, it was the game.”
Even to this day, Cage enjoys assembling his squad for frequent Revenge tournaments. As a small part of the festivities accompanying his 40th birthday celebrations, for example, he held a special Revenge ‘invitational’ in a Las Vegas hotel suite. “The last few years,” he confirms, “we’ve had these giant parties at this giant suite here in Vegas…so it’s been a go-to staple for my entire life. We even made our own rankings which are all written down. Currently, I’m still the World Champion with Scott Norton!
“But it was a great game, and I loved the fact that the masses played Revenge. Whether you liked wrestling or not, you played it – and it made those [other] people get more into wrestling. It was such an easy ‘pick-up-and-play’ game, where if you didn’t have an idea of how to play, you learned pretty damn quick.”
“We ended up with games that had genuine crossover appeal,” agrees @Melonbread1979. “Wrestling fans who weren’t into video games would buy a Nintendo 64 just to play it…and video game fans who weren’t wrestling fans would buy it or play it, often becoming WCW fans in the process.”
“THQ was responsible for bringing the first great wrestling games to the US,” adds Justin Leeper, who went on to work for THQ on its WWE games during a later era. “They crafted realistic yet fun experiences that were a far cry from 16-bit button-mashy wrestling titles or Acclaim’s janky, over-complicated early PSone WWF games.
“WCW/nWo Revenge had such a unique style with smooth animations, fluid control and amazing four-player simultaneous action. The roster was extensive, and every wrestler had several outfits to pick. AKI’s engine allowed for unique gameplay in a variety of situations: on the apron, in the corner, when the opponent was sitting…I can still vividly picture the close-up angle as wrestlers ran to enter a Battle Royal!”
Just as it had captured the public’s imagination, Revenge ended up being a hit with the stars of the game themselves. In addition to receiving a generous fee in exchange for their participation (with some wrestlers, including Marcus ‘Buff’ Bagwell, receiving payments of up to $80,000 for the game), the stars of WCW and the nWo – particularly ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Goldberg and Booker T, among many others – enjoyed picking up the joystick to control their own fictional (fictional) selves. “I’ll never forget sitting with [Page] to do a commercial shoot for the game,” remembers Brad Lanoue, an intern with WCW during the last four months of 1998. “When the shoot was over, he just sat down with me on the couch – ‘cos they had a little setup [there] – and we just played the game…at least for an hour! That was really hard to come by back then…that you had a wrestler who would actually talk to you.”
Such was – and is – the power of Revenge.
The above is an excerpt of BEYOND NITRO by
@GuyEvansBooks, a collection of 23 (mostly) self-contained chapters on WCW, its historical significance, and continued nostalgic appeal. Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
![WCWNitroBook's tweet photo. The relationship between video games and professional wrestling is explored in a special chapter of BEYOND NITRO, the new book from @GuyEvansBooks. See below for an excerpt - and RT please!
Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4
CHAPTER 18: REVENGE
(Excerpt)
With the new millennium imminent, an array of cultural critics reflected on the unquestioned ascendance of video games, an entertainment medium that appeared – as evidenced by the technological evolutions of the prior decade – to be evolving rather rapidly. Despite still being discounted in some quarters, the gaming industry had quickly become a behemoth, easily surpassing the film industry in terms of total revenues. In the process, numerous video games emerged as defining cultural touchstones for an entire generation. “We were the first generation to grow up on video games,” notes the TNA wrestler @TheSamiCallihan. “Our generation is a completely different generation of human beings…we didn’t [think], ‘Oh, we want to be rock stars,’ or, ‘We want to be out every night of the week.’ We’re all nerds.”
The proliferation of video games had several notable effects, including – among other things – the transmission of game-specific culture around the globe. In admittedly asymmetrical fashion (given the preeminence of a relatively small number of regional gaming powerhouses), the success of top titles transcended national boundaries – in a way that few other diversions approached. With no appreciable language barrier, and similarly aided by the promotion of universal storytelling themes, the video game business became a “homogeneous phenomenon,” according to a study published in the International Journal of Communication, “hovering weightlessly in a culturally undefined space, independent of local contexts.”
Thus an intriguing scenario developed wherein a prominent video game, like WCW/nWo Revenge – designed in the United States and developed in Japan – appealed, on a simultaneous basis, to players all over the world. While one group of teenagers could be up and enjoying a multiplayer tournament in, say, Minneapolis one Friday night, a parallel group of gamers, perhaps based in London, could be winding down their own marathon event at five o’clock in the morning. Meanwhile, 1500 miles away in Athens, Greece, a solitary N64 user, his eyes half asleep at seven o’clock local time, could be about to start his own game – a pile of pesky homework going unnoticed on the floor. Connecting them all, of course, was a common language – not English – but that of video games.
A similar effect played out as far as Australia, recalls the Perth-based wrestler and podcaster @KarliforniaNWO. "Something that was incredibly important was the video games,” he explains. “WCW/nWo World Tour, WCW/nWo Revenge, and [later] WrestleMania 2000. The video games were extremely important because you’d have sleepovers, where some of your friends might not even watch wrestling, but they would get familiar with the characters that people [chose and played with]…and then they’d end up watching! That’s how a lot of people became fans, because they would recognize the people they chose in the video game on the actual screen.”
In one of the interesting (and now, rather quaint) quirks of the early Internet era, American cultural trends tended to ‘travel’, relative to their ability to resonate with people overseas, on a perceptible delay of sorts – often with a ‘gap’ of numerous months (or even years) at a time. “Because of the Monday Night Wars,” remembers Infirri, “wrestling had started to get hot [domestically] in ‘96 to early ‘97. It took us a couple of years to catch up… [in general], Australia was always far behind the United States with things.
“For example, we would get Raw and Nitro on Foxtel, the provider that had the channels for wrestling. The shows that aired on Foxtel would usually be about six to eight weeks late, so we would always be one or two months behind what was actually happening.
“That changed once it got popular enough to have the shows ‘fast tracked’ to Australia quicker. At that point, we got Raw the day that it happened, and Nitro the week that it happened.
“[But] 1998 was the year when it really hit [in Australia]. I could go into my local Kmart, or Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target…and there wasn’t just a couple of shelves [devoted to wrestling], it was a whole row. A whole row dedicated to wrestling figurines, replica titles, T-shirts, merch…
“The whole aisle would have WCW and WWF products – all the way down. Everywhere you went, there were ‘Austin 3:16’ shirts and nWo shirts – everywhere you went. And this is in an isolated city – Perth.
“If it’s big in such an isolated city,” continues Infirri, “that means something. That means it’s huge – it’s pop culture. It was so popular that we all started doing backyard wrestling. It was massive. In our metropolitan area, there were four backyard wrestling groups at one time, and there might have been more that we just never discovered. I know it was quite prevalent over on the East Coast of Australia as well.”
Infirri’s testimony speaks to an underrated phenomenon that occurred – both domestically and, as indicated, internationally – in concert with the ‘90s wrestling boom. Specifically, the impact of THQ’s wrestling titles was such that the games concurrently created two cooperative circumstances. Firstly, existing fans were provided with an outlet for their fandom that had existed previously, but not in the same realistic (and enjoyable) manner as now was possible. Secondly, potential fans – perhaps those possessing no previous affinity for (or awareness of) the wrestling business – were provided with a fun, accessible and highly social method of familiarizing themselves with the genre. To play as La Parka on WCW/nWo Revenge, for example, created a natural compulsion – on the part of the non-fan – to witness the real ‘Skull Captain’ on a subsequent episode of Nitro. “There was a ton of overlap,” confirms Dave Hoffman, a former THQ producer. “The demographics of those in attendance at the live wrestling events matched perfectly with our target market for the game.”
“First off, I completely agree with the thesis,” begins Evan Husney, co-creator of the popular @DarkSideOfRing series, in reference to the notion that the THQ titles expanded the wrestling fanbase. “The launch of those games really coincided with the early years of the N64, and obviously, that was a revolutionary game system that came out and just took over everything. The popularity of the launch title Mario 64 and Goldeneye (007) was ubiquitous across households in North America…and beyond! Everybody was playing that stuff.
“For me, personally…I was sort of that classic definition of a @TheLapsedFan. I was a young ‘Hulkamaniac’ in that 1990-sort of era in the WWF. I went to the events as a young kid, was a big fan of Sergeant Slaughter, Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and the Hasbro action figures…but by the mid ‘90s, I hadn’t really kept up with wrestling. A lot of people dipped out [at that point].
“But those games…I remember when WCW vs. nWo: World Tour came out. I picked up a copy, and I was instantly hooked. I vividly remember being in my parents’ basement and going through the roster of the different wrestlers you could choose. Obviously, I remembered Hulk Hogan and guys like Randy Savage from when I was a little kid, but I thought, ‘Wait. They’re in different colors and they’re in different uniforms. Why is that?’
“Then I started looking at all these other wrestlers that I [wasn’t] familiar with. I remember being like, ‘Who’s Chris Benoite?’ So in trying to figure it out, I played the game so much that eventually, it did lead to me checking out what was happening on television. 100% – that’s what led me to engage and watch wrestling again.
“Then I started making the connections…figuring out who Scott Hall was, or who Kevin Nash was, just by the recognition of who they were in this game. Soon I was hooked on [the actual show]. Living in Minneapolis – a big wrestling hotspot – WCW came through very regularly. I ended up going to all the Nitros that were there, and I really became a WCW fan – first and foremost, because of the [THQ] games.
“When Revenge came out, it was a total game-changer,” continues Husney. “It was ‘next level’ and [simply] amazing. I had sleepovers with friends where we would play the game all night. We would ‘book’ our own pay-per-views [during the sleepovers]. We would put together all the matches – who was going to play who – and while I don’t exactly remember the technology that I had…there was a way that I could record the matches on to the VCR, and then somehow do commentary [over it] with our voices! We would be like, ‘Okay – this is gonna be Uncensored ‘99,’ or whatever. We would put on all our matches with our little kid commentary, and I have very fond memories of doing that with my friends growing up.”
“I’ve always believed,” opines @RealBryanB, owner and operator of @WCWWorldwide – a popular, WCW-themed retrospective website – “that the series of wrestling video games that came from AKI/THQ for the Nintendo 64 were essential in creating a whole new base of younger wrestling fans.
“…When WCW vs nWo: World Tour was released in late 1997, it was seemingly something of an unexpected sleeper-hit. Reading reviews from that period, you can see a pattern of reviewers specifically trying to break through a certain message to the reader: Yes, wrestling is fake and hokey – but you have to play this game.
“And they were right. There was a simplicity with World Tour that allowed anyone to step into the ring and enjoy it as a multiplayer action/sports game. The game was an absolute blast to play, filled with unique characters with various wrestling styles that was an inviting package to anyone who tried it out. Having a system with four-controller plugs built into the console itself was a godsend for easily creating late-night multiplayer mayhem with your friends. For the hardcore wrestling enthusiast, you finally had a game that recreated your obsession beautifully with its detailed move animations. [But] no previous knowledge of Sting or the nWo was needed to enjoy World Tour.
“World Tour would get a Player’s Choice reissue and be placed on a pedestal by Nintendo themselves alongside other gaming giants like Super Smash Bros. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There was no better wrestling video game in America until the follow-up was released a year later: WCW/nWo Revenge.
“Revenge improved the World Tour formula but also completely overhauled the presentation to fully represent the Nitro era of WCW, something lacking from its predecessor. You could now wrestle in several different PPV arenas or on a Monday Nitro stage that all attempted to faithfully recreate their real broadcast counterparts. The roster pared down the number of original characters found in World Tour in favor of actual WCW wrestlers you’d see on weekly television. A wrestler edit mode was added so that you could potentially keep up with the never-ending recruitment of new members of the New World Order. This was a game that was polished and set to become a major success right out the gate with Nintendo Power reviewing WCW/nWo Revenge higher than the original Pokémon Blue/Red for the Game Boy (8.1 vs. 7.2), [for example].
“Speaking from personal experience, I had several friends who would become temporary wrestling diehards through WCW vs nWo: World Tour. The nWo and D-Generation X shirts had already started to infiltrate my middle school, but World Tour was converting more non-believers around me and convincing them to watch wrestling. WCW was already in a ratings boom during its Monday Night War with Raw, but this N64 title was an interactive gateway drug for us into this [rather] bizarre subculture. Maybe parents were hesitant to allow their children to watch simulated gang warfare between one man in mime face-paint versus an entire squad of black-and-white attired goons, but a video game? What’s the harm in that?”
“Before Revenge,” notes @briancagegmsi, a prominent wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), “there was obviously World Tour – which was great – but Revenge…that was the one. There were four of us…including my older brother, my best friend Stephen and my good friend, Jamie…that played it almost every weekend. We’d have a whole slumber party deal where we’d play games and watch movies and stuff…but Revenge was the main game. We’d always do the 40-man battle royale, and we’d make it ‘pinfall elimination’ so it’d last all night long. We spent so many hours on that game.”
For Cage, the game brings forth an additional wave of sentimentality, relative to his close friendship with Chris Klucsarits – aka WCW’s Chris Kanyon – who provided the inspiration for Cage’s subsequent career path. “Kanyon was the hidden character for the U.S. Title Tournament,” recalls the AEW star. “They made his character freaking awesome! Kanyon actually told me that the reason they put him there – and why they made his character extra cool – is because some of the creators were massive fans of his. His character had a bunch of cool moves – combo strikes and everything else – and they definitely made his character different.
“All throughout junior high and high school, it was the game.”
Even to this day, Cage enjoys assembling his squad for frequent Revenge tournaments. As a small part of the festivities accompanying his 40th birthday celebrations, for example, he held a special Revenge ‘invitational’ in a Las Vegas hotel suite. “The last few years,” he confirms, “we’ve had these giant parties at this giant suite here in Vegas…so it’s been a go-to staple for my entire life. We even made our own rankings which are all written down. Currently, I’m still the World Champion with Scott Norton!
“But it was a great game, and I loved the fact that the masses played Revenge. Whether you liked wrestling or not, you played it – and it made those [other] people get more into wrestling. It was such an easy ‘pick-up-and-play’ game, where if you didn’t have an idea of how to play, you learned pretty damn quick.”
“We ended up with games that had genuine crossover appeal,” agrees @Melonbread1979. “Wrestling fans who weren’t into video games would buy a Nintendo 64 just to play it…and video game fans who weren’t wrestling fans would buy it or play it, often becoming WCW fans in the process.”
“THQ was responsible for bringing the first great wrestling games to the US,” adds Justin Leeper, who went on to work for THQ on its WWE games during a later era. “They crafted realistic yet fun experiences that were a far cry from 16-bit button-mashy wrestling titles or Acclaim’s janky, over-complicated early PSone WWF games.
“WCW/nWo Revenge had such a unique style with smooth animations, fluid control and amazing four-player simultaneous action. The roster was extensive, and every wrestler had several outfits to pick. AKI’s engine allowed for unique gameplay in a variety of situations: on the apron, in the corner, when the opponent was sitting…I can still vividly picture the close-up angle as wrestlers ran to enter a Battle Royal!”
Just as it had captured the public’s imagination, Revenge ended up being a hit with the stars of the game themselves. In addition to receiving a generous fee in exchange for their participation (with some wrestlers, including Marcus ‘Buff’ Bagwell, receiving payments of up to $80,000 for the game), the stars of WCW and the nWo – particularly ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, Goldberg and Booker T, among many others – enjoyed picking up the joystick to control their own fictional (fictional) selves. “I’ll never forget sitting with [Page] to do a commercial shoot for the game,” remembers Brad Lanoue, an intern with WCW during the last four months of 1998. “When the shoot was over, he just sat down with me on the couch – ‘cos they had a little setup [there] – and we just played the game…at least for an hour! That was really hard to come by back then…that you had a wrestler who would actually talk to you.”
Such was – and is – the power of Revenge.
The above is an excerpt of BEYOND NITRO by
@GuyEvansBooks, a collection of 23 (mostly) self-contained chapters on WCW, its historical significance, and continued nostalgic appeal. Get the book here: https://t.co/oH3gskeNx4](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gs7b7obXAAED3D-.jpg)
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The Following Announcement Has Been Paid For By The Blue World Order
ECW: Hardcore TV
November 26th, 1996
@BlueMeanieBWO | @bWoStevie
@timbutterly a black dad would love to play twister air
(Line was so good I felt the need to make it my second tweet of the year)
So good
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@notsam Samuel Shitfarts- just peeped your black mirror rankings… even a broken clock is right twice a day.
What’s your breakdown of the new season? Let me know if you want to have me on a lonely Friday night to dissect it.
@wookbrah @tic_not_tock
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@brendandunne Lost the draw and Found my L
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