401 - WWF Wrestlemania Challenge

WWF Wrestlemania Challenge! Go head-to-head with 8 of the biggest WWF superstars! And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. Oh, Sean. Sean, this is your, uh...

What do they call that? WrestleSona? Your Rersona? No, don't do that. Your ring name. I was in it. I know. It really took me out of it. What would be your ring name? You know. Shiesty Sean. Shiesty Sean. Yeah, I'm Mikey Murder. Mikey Murder. Yeah.

He goes in there, he's murdering those guys, and it's like the kids don't know that it's not real, and they're trying to protect their favorite wrestler. He's going to murder them. Do the people already know that your childhood screen name was Mikey Murder? Yeah, not childhood. Childhood, actually, that's funny because that's a whole other conversation for everybody, right? Nobody ever had a good AOL screen name. Nobody's proud of their AOL screen name. Mine was Game Player Me.

because me are my initials so it was like i guess some yoda ism were like you know me a game player like i i play the games uh uh what was yours oh i had bbq 90.

Did you love barbecue that much? I thought it'd be funny. And then later I had one that's... way too cringe-inducing to even repeat on the show so i'm not going to is the bbq one like when people were saying like oh my god what the fuck barbecue sauce do you remember like that would just be like a string of letters that you can throw together

It definitely preceded that little so random era of humor. So you were ahead of the curve, actually. You should have invested in barbecue. I should have. I should be the Stubbs guy.

So this is another WWF game. We have had one before, and that one was... boringly just called wwf wrestlemania okay that's boo that's boring come on we've had six of those by now uh six pay-per-views of wrestlemania uh they decided to change it and add challenge to the fold because now it's the debut, the video game debut of yourself.

Yourself is now the custom-named wrestler in this game where it's supposed to be you, but it's missing arguably the most important feature of every wrestling game that comes out these days. The create a character portion of it where you spend hours making either yourself or some clown or some famous person and give them a name. The yourself thing as like.

Just seeing that in the title. It's a hand wave, yeah. Right. It's not you. But I really, you have to hand it to them that they knew that this is something that people wanted to do. If just to... pretend that this is you and not so much customize yourself like this is just like yeah you can just self-insert use your imagination right but why can't i just self-insert my brain into the body of hulk hogan

I mean, you wouldn't want to do that now. No, yeah, yeah. Well, definitely not now, but Hulk Hogan at the time actually... was just falling out of favor, if you noticed, on both the main menu and the box and all that. He's present on the box, of course. He's still a big draw, but the biggest draw on the WWF at this time...

is the ultimate warrior. And WrestleMania VI had just happened earlier this year, this year, 1990. And he took the belt for the first time from Hulk Hogan. So it was one of those things where now you have like a, you know... a new superstar, a new guy to lead the next generation. And it didn't quite pay off, and Hulk wound up winning a bunch more times. But did you feel like Hulk had been maybe not as big of a deal as he was in the first game, now in this game? Or was it still like...

No, he's the biggest star. Well, first of all, if I see Randy Savage, I guess Macho King Randy Savage now. You have to clarify that to me. That's my guy. But I did notice that you had to scroll a few times to get to Hulk Hogan. So if that has anything to do with it, I could assume that maybe he's fallen a bit out of favor. Yeah, and I wouldn't say not a ton, obviously. He was the main event fight against the Ultimate Warrior, but you notice it even just in the...

There's that ladder mode where you one by one take on the opponents and they start you with the jobbers who aren't really jobbers by any means in the game. Jobbers are just people who just take hits and lead matches. But, you know, here it's like eight great... wwf superstars but i guess nobody's hoping that like the big boss man's gonna become wwf world champion right like he does look the most pedestrian yeah a cop come on yeah he's just sort of wearing like a like a button-up shirt

he's not I don't even see any like underwear looking stuff on him it's very strange yeah back then though that was like New Jersey yeah that was your personality right it was like you know

I'm a wrestler who's a cop. I'm a wrestler who's good looking, right? Ravishing Rick Rude. That's not a personality, buddy. I think the listeners know by now that I've never truly watched wrestling. If they've watched, if they've listened to the rest of the episodes. But I thought they, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that that guy was made up.

That's funny because I do remember from the last time we recorded you and Joe both being astonished to learn that Macho Man's theme song was Pomp and Circumstance, the graduation music. And to me... I hear that music, and even when I was graduating, it was like, damn, that's Macho Man's theme song. For me, that's the Macho Man, not so much graduation.

It happens again in this game, too. The theme songs in general, though, in this game, a little weird. They switch back and forth between the two wrestlers. Yeah. And that's fine. Some of them... are great you know like it'd be great if you're doing macho man versus hulk and you're hearing two awesome theme songs switch back and forth it's a little weirder when it's like uh yourself because like you don't even know that theme song like it's it means nothing to you

It's a, you know, it's just a stand in theme song. You can hum whatever you like when you're playing as yourself. When you would make a character, though, in like the THQ games, you would have to pick a theme song. And they had a couple of like. Probably music library tracks that they were able to license or whatever, but.

You would also be able to like just grab like Stone Cold Steve Austin's theme song. It's like, yeah, of course, that's going to be my theme song. Why wouldn't it? But then is that really any different than just saying like yourself? Like you do kind of if you're going to go in with the yourself thing.

On a custom character. And I ask you because I know you love. The create a character things. In these wrestling games. What is your goal. When you're creating a character. I'm trying to. Create a. a cohesive holistic vibe of a dude and or gal and sometimes that means that But I also have trouble using the other theme songs or especially in like the much more recent ones where you can sort of cue up and key.

DMX lightboard the entire walk up which I never get that into Where you have to like pick the video that plays behind you as you walk in and stuff like it's really hard When they're like, oh yeah, do you want, I don't know who's big right now. Like you have to use these like pre-made like videos that actual wrestlers use. And it's sort of that same thing of just like, I want.

something unique and that means i have to use royalty free music and sometimes that means you have to use um just standard like lightning bolt video stuff behind you it's uh i don't know what i'm saying right now but no but it's the plight of the creative character enjoyer Right. And in a way, you actually are role playing as the promoter and not necessarily the individual wrestler that you're making. Like a lot of people just use the creative wrestler thing to make themselves.

Or are you going to give yourself like a T-shirt? Like, are you just going to wear regular clothes? Like, no, you got to make yourself, but like, cool. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm really good at that. And I shouldn't be like, I shouldn't be beating up the yourself character. I do think this is a, this is.

the earliest introduction of a you in a video game even if it isn't just like wrestling right like yeah just the the idea that you're in the game even if it is super loose here this is like the first time we're seeing that and so this is

A groundbreaking idea. Absolutely. Now, before we move on, I just need you to explain to me what this macho king thing is. Right, right. I just don't see him as that. It was just an arc. for him in the show. And he kind of, you know... I would never say Macho Man went full heel or full babyface at any time in his career. He just kind of was. That's a babyface. Babyface means like you're the crowd pleaser. I don't know why they came up with that term. I never understood it.

I'm sure there's some deep lore explanation for it. Okay. You're either a heel or you're a baby face. And I don't think he ever did too much of anything because he was just kind of doing his own thing. So even when he was the macho king, which probably was more heel territory. the crowd still loves him. You know, it's like you can't get enough of that shit either. And you love to, you're not even booing him on except for when he's like being rude to Miss Elizabeth, you know? That is, yeah.

He basically crowned himself Macho King. It's one of those things. Okay. He didn't win an award or something. No, I didn't think so. I did figure it was some storyline. I know that he has... Many different iterations. I just never knew that his name would have changed. Yeah, but if you think about it, right, he goes from Macho Man to Macho King. Just a matter of time before he met Macho God, right? Yeah.

So we can get into the game, but I did just want to ask a general question, not even just to you, but I guess to the creators of wrestling games. Now, wrestling isn't, while it is a sport and is... Definitely, you know, now sports entertainment. It doesn't need to be a sport like how baseball, football, basketball, hockey have been on the NES where like.

they try to do you know there's there's two camps right there's the simulator aspect where it's like we want to bring baseball to the nes so that you don't have to play it in your backyard and then there's the like What if robots played baseball, right? And let's do that. And yet wrestling never went there, right? Like why? This is WWF, huge brand.

Why would they focus on like just the athleticism of the wrestling and not like the video game elements of like, well, yeah, we should have power ups and we should have like.

uh you know a side scrolling game like right where you play as like hulk and take down uh you know goons and thugs it's like why wasn't that the idea and instead we get like these simulate wrestling when like the technology's not quite there yet i think i have an answer um and you might not like it but i think maybe uh wrestling the wwf at this time the wwe now

uh they might be a little you know self-conscious about their image and the idea of uh things not being as they seem and you know if you're going to use power-ups and cartoonish uh like mechanics like that that might play into those rumors that um oh yes what you see may not be what uh what is real which they were like

going through like at this very moment in 1990 like those cases were just starting to begin really and or might have actually been finalized at that point I'm not quite sure on the timeline of that but it was a losing battle So I can see if there was a time where if everybody thought football was rigged, which it may or may not be, that there wouldn't be any... semblance of like an nfl blitz ever so maybe i don't know that this is this is my pulled out of my ass concept

i get it yeah no i was trying to figure out when hulk hogan uh choked out that reporter uh on air um you know what i'm talking about okay uh He was trying to show that wrestling was real or whatever, and it was Richard Belzer. So he assaulted a guy. Yeah, he put him in a headlock. And unfortunately, you know, he didn't get any air. So he passed out on stage, hit his head on the floor, too. So that's not good. And that was apparently I just looked it up. That was five years.

um from from 1990s that was 1985 but the but the lawsuit i guess happened in 1990 so that's how long it took five years to sue him is that when he started saying hulkamaniac or no hulkamaniacs was like 84 85 like that that stuff was And look about it. Everybody was a Hulkamaniac. It's kind of crazy Richard Belzer wasn't a Hulkamaniac that he needed to be proven. And that was like a thing. You couldn't say wrestling was fake to these guys because remember that their fists are real.

And you're going to upset them. Of course they're going to show you, oh, you think it's fake? And then they punch you, right? Don't upset a bear. Even if it's fake, they still have the ability to beat the shit out of you. They still get CTE. Right.

On to the game. Never funny. I can't believe you went there. I would never say something like that. You didn't hear that. Drink that from the record. On to the game. WWF WrestleMania Challenge is different than just WWF WrestleMania because in that video game, it was actually like, it was a side, not side scrolling, but.

You know what I mean? It was on that viewpoint. It was a square instead of a diamond. Yes, but it was also, yeah, exactly. Half the ring was cut out. They were showing it. You were basically on a fixed angle. And here now we're in an isometric view. And there's a couple of, I have just a couple issues here. So the first issue that I have is that we're just too far out. The camera. Yeah. Like everything, everything is kind of small.

And the fans are too far away from the action. Like there's this huge area of just dark blackness. that you can go out into and fight and the referee will start to count to 10 for the ring out. But like that area is just too large. Like it didn't have to be that large. But this ring is also too large for the size of these characters. I think there's too much.

room to roam around in and everything could have just been a little better if the, not that if everything was bigger, but if the camera was just a little closer to that action. I just don't I don't mind the isometric view. We'll get into obviously the biggest problem with that shortly. But just from a presentation standpoint, everything just feels too small to be.

To meet the razzle-dazzle of sports entertainment. I think that my biggest complaint here isn't so much the being far away. I think it's the being... Your play space just... panning constantly and The same things that you're saying would fix it would fix this as well Like just make the ring a little smaller bring the crowd in I guess just to make it look prettier

But I can't play this game if half the time the actual heads-up display is illegible because it's off the screen. Right. Your health is... Like it's diegetic. It's like built into the ring. So once it pans to the left or the right, you might not see your or your opponent's health. It's one of those things that's like it's tasteful. Yeah.

As a concept, it's really cool to just have it there on the side of the ring. And you're like, oh, wow. We have not seen that either too often. The UI is part of the environment. That's really cool. But to your point, it doesn't work if you... uh can scroll away from it like you have no idea at certain points if you're doing well or not like do i have a lot of hp left i don't know and i think if they just shrunk if they shrunk the uh the actual ring

to like 10%. And then there would just, you wouldn't need to pan. It would all just be the same screen the whole time. Everything would be, I think that the game would feel a lot better with just that slight tweak. And if I'm trying to do the most electrifying moves in sports entertainment, it's not even that I want to like, like the animation is pretty good. Like I like the animation of the grappling moves and like from the top rope and such.

But I want them to connect a lot more than they do. Because of this isometric view, the way that you attack is on a diagonal. And it's not that it's impossible, but it takes getting used to in a way that's very uncomfortable. And it requires like, it basically makes you look like a drunk sometimes where you're just punching air. I think it took me like two or three rounds of just getting my ass handed to me to truly like.

I was never spectacular, but to even start landing blows and to know what could and could not hit or even how to exit or enter the ring on purpose. It took a few times, but after that, and I think like there's never been a wrestling game that truly felt great. They all kind of have this like really heaviness to them. And I think this is in that same vein. But after that, those few like calibration rounds, it started to feel more like that.

You have a bunch of different modes. You have the 1v1, just exhibition, take on anybody you want. You pick who you are and you pick who they are. You have tag team, which is great. Two on two and the other. Your tag team partner can also like, you're not just like frozen there. You can go around and do shit. The Survivor Series one is interesting because it's...

Three on three, but not all at the same time. It's a three on three elimination, almost like Marvel vs. Capcom, where like when one's out. the next one tag or something yeah yeah yeah you you can't like swap it on the fly i didn't i at least i don't think so i don't want to say that too confident you could tried it oh you can just swap it like that i mean there's not it's never like both of the guys are on the side

Only one can be tagged in, but you can still tag in, yeah. Got it. Here I was thinking you just have to press the right trigger in the... I'm making a Marvel vs. Capcom joke. But once you're eliminated, that opponent is out. So that's pretty cool. It's not like you're not... The tag team, obviously, when someone gets pinned, the match is over. So that's cool. And then the...

The whole incentive of the single player mode is the title run where you just start at the bottom and you take on Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Big Boss Man, Ravishing Rick Rude, Brutus the Barber Beefcake. Andre the Giant, Macho King Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, and last, the Ultimate Warrior. Can you say it right, though? What am I supposed to say? You usually give some more razzle-dazzle on Ultimate Warrior.

oh and the ultimate warrior there you go okay cool yeah and that's how he would do it too his whole thing was just like he just was that he was at like 11 the entire time of his life like insane yeah i mean his whole thing was like he would just he wouldn't even you know like In wrestling, the theme song comes on and then they take two and a half minutes.

To just, like, get down to the ring and you hear their song. He just sprinted down? He just sprints down every time. It didn't matter, like, what it was. And then, you know, like, The Rock had his thing where, like, he would put his arm up in the air and wave to the ground. Not wave to the ground, but, like. put it up like that. Give you a weird look, yeah. Yeah, give the fingers to the crowd, which is like pretty ballsy. Drink a beer.

Triple H would just spit on the crowd. That's pretty cool, in my opinion. But he would just gum out there, sprint, and then grab... the ropes and start shaking them like violently like he would go from one end to the other and just shake the ropes like it's like this guy's gonna fucking kill me like he's coked out

He was almost certainly coked at. So that's what we're missing, though, in this game, though, is we're missing entrances. We're missing a key part of... And maybe, who knows? I don't know. Definitely by this time, that was a big deal.

But, like, maybe they just didn't think it mattered enough for the game. But, like, I think if you're going for this presentational style view and doing shit where, like, the UI is part of the ring, like, you got to go commit 100% to that. And it's noticeably missing. that they don't have cool entrances. Because even Andre the Giant could have came out and had his manager alongside him, Bobby the Brain Heenan. And Hulk Hogan could have came out and ripped the shirt.

You could see it. I could see how they do it. And it's not like the game isn't capable of it. No. So to just start cold in the ring. Like half the basketball games that we've played have some kind of cut scenes whenever you dunk. Like. All they needed was a little minimally animated cutscene at the beginning of each bout. And you've almost gotten there.

Every wrestler allegedly has like some stat changes, like how much damage they deal or how much damage they can take and such. I don't know. I didn't play the game enough to notice that. But I did play with – he's usually on these episodes. I did play this game with Joe. Oh. And when we were doing the – we were just – we didn't – we did actually – we did do one tag team match. But we did mostly exhibition fights. And –

It's even worse, actually, when two people are playing, trying to figure out this isometric view. Was one of you wanted a giant? No, no. Actually... Glad you mentioned him, though. Andre is the best looking sprite in the game. Absolutely. He's got that sense of size. He has weight to him. I'm a big fan of that. But no, I think we mostly played, you know, Joe, he's a big yourself guy.

He played as yourself. And I think I played between Ultimate Warrior Hulk and Macho King. And, you know, they don't have like, they don't have enough unique moves. Like, they don't feel like themselves. They definitely have, like, different animations. I noticed that at the very least. But the only reason I mention Andrew the Giant is because he's the only one from what I played.

that can't get on the ropes he just sort of like leans could you imagine what would happen if he got up on the ropes he's 570 pounds I mean I Didn't know that they were gonna think of that and if that's like that's a pretty significant like Pro con for a character

Where the rest of them feel pretty samey. I agree with you because I also think it's bullshit that everybody can slam Andre the Giant. That should not happen. No, they can all pick him up. Yeah. I think it was Legends of... wwf legends or legends of wrestlemania on like xbox 360 where they actually did make it where like you can't slam andre the giant like the first time ever it was like cool somebody checked in on this Can you just like you just trip them maybe?

Or is he a completely unstoppable force? I mean, you hit him enough, he goes down, right? I mean, think about it. If he goes down, does he get him back up? How long does it take an elephant to get up like that? But there is fun to be had here. I agree with you that, you know, they do have unique animations. It is fun to, for me, it was fun to play as these guys that I grew up watching. Like, I'm a fan of all of this.

I just wish it controlled a little tighter and that the grappling wasn't so awkward. When you grapple, there's, I guess, a timing window for who pressed at the right time.

gets the gets to do the slam like it doesn't oh it doesn't always feel great that like but I'm the one who initiated the grapple like it should just be my move like I'm leading this thing does that does that feel broken or is that am I making the right call there I could never really understand what I was supposed to time for because the striking, like when you're just throwing a punch or a hook or whatever you're doing, it feels designed so that you can get in.

an actual like string like you can go like one two three and then maybe there'd be a beat where your opponent can respond if he has enough uh stamina left but it just felt like anytime i i through a punch, I was just leaving myself open for a hold or a suplex or something. So I would only try and throw strikes if I was at a weird angle because of the isometric.

Nature of it that like maybe they wouldn't be able to hit me back or something So yeah, the timing always felt a little wrong, but I think if it was me and you or me and Joe playing, I can understand that being a bit more feeling a bit more fair with us not having computer timing. and having some fun with that. But yeah, against the computers that can just sort of interrupt anything you do, it seems, is a bit more frustrating.

And with the later WWF or just, you know, any wrestling game, the WCW games were like this too. There was kind of a sweet spot in the N64 PS1 generation, but it continues. We're like... The huge appeal for someone like me who sucks at fighting games, right? Like the street fighters of the world and stuff like that is that there were never any like complicated button inputs in order to do. finishing moves or to do um you know uh complicated grapples

Like, it was very easy. And so it made a fighting game, which it's not, right? They're two completely different entities. But it made something that was about fighting feel easy and effortless. And I guess I think, like... Now, going back to these NES games, they're just not as fun because, one, there's a very limited move set, and two, it doesn't really feel like I'm pulling it off. Like, I'm not doing the kind—like, when you're—

When you're playing NES baseball, you're not going to hit every pitch. You're going to swing and miss, and that feels bad, but you're also going to make contact with the ball and hit home runs and shit, and that's cool. You watch.

baseball to watch home runs happen on your TV and you also want to do them in the game and it's like here it's not like I can't beat an opponent but I also just don't feel like I'm the badass ultimate warrior that i watched on tv like does that make sense yeah i think the the the biggest sin for me was um whenever you down an opponent

I feel like when you're down, it takes some effort to get back up. But when you down the computer, they get up pretty fast. Like, if you're trying to go in for a pin, you better, like... Have really good like precise inputs to get there and get it down in time But it's not even just for pinning for me like I want to get someone down in the center of the ring Walk over to the top rope and slam on them

But there's never enough time to do that. You have to like time it so that they are approaching you and they can't get away in time while they're still upright. Like that's the sort of like, like. pay-per-view image of the very little wrestling I've actually watched. That's what I want to pull off, and I could never do it the way I wanted to do it. So I think I share your frustration there.

Yeah, that was another question I was going to ask is just a huge part of the excitement of watching a wrestling match is kind of the momentum swings, right? You'll have guys who look like completely dead in the ring, right? And then all of a sudden they like come to.

right the undertaker always famously had his like half rise uh hulk hulk would do the thing where all of a sudden your punches wouldn't work on him anymore like you'd punch him and he would just be like start shaking up getting crazy and then the crowd would go nuts too Those animations don't exist here, but do momentum swings exist in this game? Is it like, you know, in a tag match, is a quick tag a way to change the momentum of the match? Are there, like, ways to, like...

get away from your opponent and recover some health? Like, does it feel like that? Or is it just kind of like, either I'm good against the AI or I'm not? Yeah, it's, there's no... there's no like rubber banding or there's no actual like mechanic for coming back which I don't know if I've ever noticed that in any other wrestling game but with the stamina system your only way

sort of turning the tables or doing your best to maximize that outcome is to just try and walk away from your opponent for long enough to recover a bit of recover a bit of stamina. And in the other sense of momentum, which I don't think this is what you meant, but it made me think of this. You've got this. You've got this.

sprint mechanic if you double tap a Directional button you will start to sprint and that's how this was tailored for sort of like bouncing off the rope and sort of coming back in clotheslining or something like that. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, of course. That doesn't exist. No. It's crazy. It was like, oh, this has to be here because this is a part of the game and it's just not there. It's very strange.

Yeah, in fact, I actually, before I was looking into much of the game, just playing it with Joe, we didn't even know you could get onto the turnbuckles. That's not necessarily intuitive. It's not something that you just go near them and then you climb them. Right. So, I mean, it's awesome when you're up there, though. I do think, like, Macho Man's finisher is the elbow from the top rope. And, like, it looks great in the game. And somehow he's able to get to, like...

That ring is huge, and he's like flying in the air to get all the way to the middle of it. Those are the cool moments of this game. I just wonder if it needed, because wrestling is such a... uh a presentational thing right if it needed more of that uh it did there would have been like a funny if there could have been a funny story mode yeah

yeah rather than just a ladder and gauntlet you know it didn't need didn't need you know nowadays you can like literally make like there's like dialogue trees and shit right like you're doing like you do like a whole a whole year Of the WWF. That's, like, really cool. Here, I keep saying WWF. We're going to get sued. We're going to get sued. We're going to get sued so hard. The World Wildlife Foundation does not appreciate this. They're knocking on your door, Mike.

This is not a game about pandas fighting. We should make that clear right now. I can't be the only one. There have to be people who are like, it's still WWF to me, damn it. And Pluto's still a planet. You know, all those things. When is Pluto going to be a planet again? I think it needs to bulk up a bit. This is a question that isn't really for the podcast, but I heard about it and I'll bring it up here since we're talking about space.

We have, like, another moon right now, apparently. We have, like, a second moon. You know about this? Oh, I think I did read that there is some very small asteroid that is... orbiting us yeah gonna be orbiting us for like a while like another 20 years or so and it's just kind of like it's like that's fun i mean unless it's as big as phobos or something and maybe it is

I'm not going to consider it a moon any more than I consider any satellite that we've shot into space a moon. What else did this game need?

Because we're going to get another one. Satellites. No, go on. Yeah. No, I didn't want to, like, I don't want to say the name of the next one because it'll give away what it adds. But for this game, right? What could they have realistically done? They're not going to add more fights, right? Because there really weren't... There is no such thing as a ladder match at this time, so they're not going to have that. They weren't really going under the...

Yeah, I was going to sell. They weren't going to go under the ring and grab objects yet. I'm sure that that had happened, but it is kind of weird that you can't throw your opponent into the steel steps. They're there.

Maybe it needed more of that. It needed more ring ambiance. Because even when you leave the ring and you get that count out to 10 and everything, that does feel... pressure right right like there is like a oh shit he's starting to count and like i could win this match pretty easily if i just stay out there with my opponent to like eight and then knock him out and then run back to the ring like

There is a nice balance there because otherwise the whole game is just beat your opponent to a pulp until they have like very little health left and then try to pin them and see if you can get the three. Like there's not much more. to the fights than that I suppose like there's not a lot of randomness to this yeah and I think when I started to play these games

That whole idea of like chairs just being everywhere and even being able to go backstage, that was already kind of a thing. So it's tough for me to theorize what.

it would be needed what would be needed to make just a more pure version of this be fun i mean i think it's fun enough as it is like it's this isn't it's not a pain to play but i do agree that there just needs to be more to do and i think just if they added more of that like showmanship then they should be holding up signs yeah or or you should be able to throw the guy into

the barricade and he can't get up for a second like all that like boundary stuff would be a lot more interesting the fans do occasionally take a picture though and that's pretty cool Were smartphones a thing already? Uh, yeah, that's weird, right? No, you just bring, like, a disposable camera. Ever heard of it? No.

You don't remember bringing a... No, I know you do, but I'm just teasing for a second. You bring a disposable camera to a field trip, and then you take a bunch of pictures. You get them back somehow, like...

five months later because your mom never goes to get them developed for you but you beggar enough and then you get the photos and you're like they look like nothing because you're a kid you have no fucking idea to use a camera like you weren't thinking about the exposure or anything like those photos are useless

But you keep them anyway. You keep them, but then you don't know where they are now. That's true. But they're probably in your basement if you look in that one closet. The bell has rung. The ref is counting. Is this a three count for the essential games list? Little extra presentational flair there. Lord knows the game needed it. This is going to sound rude, but this is WWF Wrestlemania Challenge. This game isn't fully there for me.

I do think it was probably a good time in 1990. Definitely an improvement over the first one, but just not enough here for me to like... Not even for the essence of games, but just for me to go back to it. There are so many other great wrestling games now that this one I won't even think about again other than the fact that we recorded this episode. Sean? Yeah.

I think this was an improvement over most, if not all wrestling games. But I think that that's telling of how far they have to go to be fun at a base level. beyond just like, oh, this isn't the worst. I did like seeing the guys I actually recognized, including yourself. And just there's always going to be a point. added to my out of 10 score, uh, if macho man is there just because, you know, he is, uh, what I feel like I wanted to be. Um, but I'm not that I'm not that I'll never be that.

And I'm sorry. Oh, not essential. Yeah, I was going to say I need to vote. But I'm also sorry because since you mentioned the Macho King, I think it's worth mentioning that while the title... of macho king was self-declared i i was technically wrong about it not being an award because technically he won king of the ring

and that's why he like it's not like that wasn't part of the stipulation was like okay whoever wins king of the ring becomes king but he declared himself macho king right from that point forward king of the ring was just like another pay-per-view they had you know yeah But it wasn't like if the ultimate warrior won, it wasn't going to be like the ultimate monarch. Yeah, the ultimate king steps in.

Little teaser for 1991 WWF. WrestleMania 7 would be Hulk Hogan versus Sgt. Slaughter. And that was like the really incredibly controversial storyline. Where Sergeant Slaughter obviously was a sergeant for like a fake sergeant for like the U.S. military. And he famously to become heel because Hulk Hogan could never be the bad guy. To become heel, he becomes an Iraqi sympathizer during this arc. While the US is involved in the Gulf War, keep in mind.

become such a hated character that he was getting death threats and they had to cancel that shit. They were like, what do we do with this? Oh, man. But, yeah, that's next year. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Don't say it. Don't say it. No, no, no, no, no. Yep. Are you sure it wasn't Sargent's Laughter? Sargent's Laughter. Yeah, it could be, right? Sargent's Laughter. Sargent's Lauder also, though. There is a tie-in here to Nintendo.

Sergeant Slaughter showed up on the Super Mario Brothers Super Show in the live action segment. Because there were no rules. What? What's that? Because there were no rules. I remember you talking about the show before and it makes no sense. The show, yeah, the show had made no sense. There was a live action portion and he would show up on that.

um and i i have that on vhs and i remember watching it many times and it's it's there for the right reasons though sean like kids especially me like just enjoy that we just enjoy like sergeant slaughter shows up and it's like Sure, we don't need the explanation for why he's in the Mario universe. He just is, right? Like, aren't we all? Couldn't I show up in the show? If Sergeant Slaughter can show up, then I could be there. That's true.

Wow. And if you're listening to this podcast, you could be in it too by entering our sweepstakes. We should have a sweepstakes. That would be fun. We could do a sweepstakes. Like just a giant scam where we just find out that like Sam's the winner so we get him back on the show. We'll figure it out. Oh, this part's going in the show? . .