So, I forget how the conversation got steered to this topic, but my ex-girlfriend asked me something to the extent of "What's the deal with guys and wrestling and video games?" I never stopped to think about that one. I replied with the requisite "It just is." You try and figure this one out, if you can find someone to fess up to it, although, it shouldn't be that hard anymore, I mean, seeing how Sunday Night Heat moved to MTV to give pro wrestling that "cool" image that it just seemed to be "lacking." Add on the fact that Limp Bizkit's "My Way" was played over EVERY fucking Wrestlemania promo, and it's not terribly difficult to see how the sport-entertainment has come full circle from the days of the Rock & Wrestling Connection (I think that's what it was called, I know that was the name of the cartoon minus "Connection"). However, something far more interesting than Limp Bizkit has come up in the last few weeks (I know, I'm being VERY vague with that statement): the WWF is now the only big time promotion left in America, having basically absorbed ECW and the bigger story, having bought WCW outright. And since I am one of those people who will fess up to the whole wrestling/video game thing, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the collective 5 WWF and WCW video games released for the NES.


Our story begins with the one WCW game released for the NES. Pretty much up until the Playstation, the WWF was more prolific when it came to the video game market, most likely because up until 1995 or so, the promotion was easily the more visible of the two, with no less than 3 weekly shows. However, as this article will show, the WCW game was clearly more playable than the 4 WWF games combined.

After the old WCW logo would appear on your screen, you'd be treated to a digitized voice announcing "World Championship Wrestling!" in a tone that would suggest a string of superlatives would follow. If you don't follow the screen's instructions and press start, you'll see the game's roster. Let's us take a look at this roster.

	Our first entrant is the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. I was debating recapping the stats in the accompanying pic, but you all have eyes and can read them for yourself. But, you should notice that Flair's trademark Figure-4 Leglock was left out of this game, probably because animating it would be a huge pain in the ass. It should also be noted that the Figure-4 hurts like a bitch. Ask that kid you know that watches wrestling to try it on you. You won't be laughing. Fun fact!: For whatever reason, most announcers will have acknowledged the fact that the WCW and WWF versions of the World Heavyweight Title were two separate world titles. However, when discussing Flair, his "15 World Titles" were always mentioned in that fashion despite the fact that two of them were won in the WWF.
This...is...Sting! Before...his...gimmick...was...a... blatant...ripoff...of...The...Crow! Not much to say about him except that he's been like the uber hero good guy in WCW for about forever, until 1994 when some guy named Hulk Hogan signed with the company, effectively pushing Sting into the second, um, goodest guy in the company. And then there was that whole nWo fiasco and his gimmick and respectability were shot to hell. Fun Fact!: Way back when, Sting was in a tag team with the Ultimate Warrior known as the Blade Runners. Of course, this was back when the Ultimate Warrior was an completely unknown lunatic as opposed to today when he's a famous lunatic.
	Lex Luger. Back when steroids were legal this guy was...you know what? I'm not even going to go there. However, he held the WCW World and U.S. titles on several occasions and showed up at the debut of WCW Monday Nitro and talked shit about the WWF. Fun Fact!: During one of his reigns as WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Lex Luger was the premiere superstar on the ultra stupid WBF Body Stars. Besides the fact that Body Stars was a complete failure on Vince McMahon, Jr.'s part, Luger was signed to the WWF in 1992 or so to "get revenge" on Mr. Perfect for driving Ric Flair our of the WWF. I know what you're thinking, and if you think that you can read these fun facts without suspending logic and reality, you've got another thing coming.
And here we have Mike Rotunda. Some of you will know him as a member of the Varsity Club, some of you will be able to recall a tag team called the U.S. Express, and others will know him as evil tax man I.R.S. In any event, the man has a good deal of collegiate wrestling under his belt, and something similar to that line was shoved down the fans' throats at every chance the announcers could get. Fun Fact!:In case you were wondering, "I.R.S." stood for "Irwin R. Schyster". Also, he's a multiple-time WWF Tag champion.
	As you can see, the well is already running dry for these descriptions so, let's just jump right to the... Fun Fact!: The "Legion of Doom" was actually a "gang" before gang warfare was a central theme to pro wrestling. The members went their separate ways over the years and when Hawk and Animal signed with the WWF, that name came with them as opposed to the "Road Warriors"
And here's Hawk's long time tag partner Animal. Fun Fact!: Animal was the "mystery" fourth opponent in the main event of one of the last WCW pay-per-views. Not surprisingly, nobody gave a shit because WCW's targeted demographic had no idea who Animal is.
	Sharp-eyed readers will recall this guy's name being featured somewhere on the front page of my site. Here's another one who was in with that college wrestling crowd before going to the big time. I think he also played a little football in college as well. He's been very successful in All Japan Pro Wrestling for quite some time, probably the most famous gaijin (foreigner) in that promotion. Fun Fact!: In 1996-97 or so, "Dr. Death" was brought into the WWF, competing in the Brawl For All competition, a concept similar to the Toughman show on fX. All the announcers called him "JR's boy". Bart Gunn injured him, and all the announcers called him "JR's boy". Last year, Williams was brought to WCW as a henchman of Oklahoma, an alleged parody of Jim Ross.
"The Gamesmaster" gimmick was supposed to be something akin to an evil butcher. However, the evil suits at Turnerland decided a bloody uniform would have been too offensive or disturbing. Before this gimmick came along, Kevin Sullivan was a member of the Varsity Club with Mike Rotunda. Sometime after this gimmick, "The Gamesmaster" became "The Taskmaster," who was some other form of evil man bent on destroying Hulkamania. Fun Fact!: In 1996, Kevin Sullivan feuded with Chris Benoit. The particulars of the feud, the fact that Benoit was having an affair with Sullivan's alleged wife Nancy (aka Woman), were rooted in the real-life affair Chris Benoit was having with Kevin Sullivan's real-life wife Nancy (aka Woman).
	This is Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. Despite his clearly Asian looks and the fact that his "style" lent itself to the martial arts, Steamboat has been able to avoid being saddled with the "evil Asian stereotype" gimmick through out his career which spanned a good 20+ years. Fun Fact!: Ricky Steamboat's match with Randy Savage over the matter of the WWF Intercontinental title and with Ric Flair over the WCW World title are largely considered some of the greatest matches ever.
Rick Steiner. Notice that whoever wrote these stats screens left out the "k" in his first name. Ah well, that ranks right up there with WCW purposely misspelling some rather famous names in order to get the wrestlers over with their audience (such as "Eddie" Guerrero and Rey "Mysterio" Jr.). Steiner was once the 3rd member of the Varsity Club. Later, Rick and his brother Scott won the WWF and WCW World Tag titles on many occasions. Fun Fact!: Rick Steiner's last catchphrase "If you don't like me, bite me!" is widely considered (by me) to be the absolute lamest catchphrase in the history of pro wrestling.
	I can't remember Eddie Gilbert doing anything of note, ever. Although, he seemed like an arrogant heel (wrestlingspeak for "bad guy") who would probably have been one of the cool heels of today, who fans are "supposed" to boo but end up cheering for. Fun Fact!: Eddie Gilbert died in 1993.
The "P.S." doesn't stand for "Pretty Stupid". In fact, I'm not sure what it's supposed to stand for. Such is life. However, he was a member of a famous tag team called the Freebirds. So famous, in fact, that I can't remember his parter's name. But they were famous way back in the day. Seriously. Fun Fact!: Michael Hayes jumped to the WWF in 1996-97 or so as announcer Dok Hendrix. Then he managed perennial losers the Hardy Boys (I'm not kidding about that name) to some form of mainstream recognition before they went on to fame in the WWF and he...well, hasn't been heard from since.
	The WCW Master. Ok, pop quiz. It's 1989. Name *1* wrestler who has ever had similar stats. The answer is Andre the Giant. Why, then, was he the WCW Master? Probably because at this point there was nobody who could have been more potentially evil, unless you count Ted Turner. Fun Fact!: The "WCW Master" was based on a superstar in Japan known as Giant Machine. Giant Machine was really Andre the Giant wearing a mask.

I skipped a few screen shots, namely the mode and wrestler selects, cause they're youre standard mostly-text screens, and if you can't recreate them in your mind, it's not terribly important.
THESE two screens are the most basic proof of why the WCW NES game outperforms any of the WWF games. You get to personalize your wrestler(s). You have basic moves like a body slam and headbutt, but after that, it's all up to you. Unlike "real" wrestling, there's no difference between any of the moves other than their animations.

So our game begins. You can tell who the referee is, as he's the only one wearing a shirt. You also get a digitized "FIGHT!" sound to accompany the word, and the match begins.

By the way, NESticle is a pain in the ass. Although, I was thinking how much easier it would have been to record an .NSM and take screenshots from that instead of trying to hit F9 with one finger while trying to play the game at the same time. But anyway, kick your opponent in the shins enough times and he will drop to one knee so you can open the proverbial can of whoopass on him.
So, in this case, walk to the right (you know damn well this wouldn't be an officially licensed Kid-Niki update if I didn't have that in there somewhere) and do nothing in particular to grab your opponent, then choose your move and its power level (with the snappy meter that appears where the clock is supposed to be) and you too can witness Rick Steiner fall down go boom. Or something like that.
...And again, only this time I chose the dreaded piledriver.

And what would a wrestling game be without action outside the ring? (We will answer that question later, actually) But keeping in the mindset that you have to suspend disbelief and logic, don't pay any attention to the fact that it's been accepted for god only knows how long that American pro wrestling only deals with a 10 count outside the ring, as opposed to the 20 you get in this game...
...and further suspend the logic a comparably sized wrench in real life would kill somebody if used in that fashion.
So, if you beat on your opponent long enough, you can perform your special move. In Michael Hayes's case, it's a "DDT". In reality, and believe me it's irritating to have to justify writing "real pro wrestling" everytime I notice a discrepancy, that's a brainbuster, but I won't be picky about it.
And if you ever forget how to count to 3, go for the pin and the referee will go above and beyond to assist you in that task. Or, you know, you can just do like the rest of us and bust out your copy of Donkey Kong Jr. Math
So here's a few clips of tag team mode. Since you get to control twice as many characters as in single mode, this mode takes twice as long to play. You, the human player (in most cases :D), get to choose your team against 5 randomly selected teams in a round-robin tournament. For those of us that follow the "sport", sometimes it's humorous (or humourous) to check out some of the ramdomly thrown together teams and think of all the ways the pairing violates any storylines that went on around the time of the game's release. Or, like most people, you'd say to me, "let's not and say we did".
And here's a few general pics of other fun things you can do in this game.

Back in single player mode, if you manage to beat everybody twice, and for your own sanity, DON'T try to do this in one sitting, you'll get to wrestle the WCW Master
The first thing you'll notice is that you don't get to select moves for this match. The second thing you'll notice is that you'll get the shit kicked out of you right from the get-go...just like "real" pro-wrestling. (Hey, I'm getting good at that) In fact, on the broken controller scale (the number of controllers you'll throw at the wall before you figure out how to get ANY offense in on this guy), the WCW Master rates a 34, slightly ahead of Jaws and that jack in the box thing at the end of NARC.
And more shots of the asskicking you're in for no matter how much you creamed yourself when Hogan slammed Andre at Wrestlema....oh wait...wrong promotion :D. Oh yeah, the WCW Master's finisher is the dreaded ass splash, complete with seizure-inducing screen flicker. And the pic on the right is his victory pose. Get used to seeing that one.

Also, I just realized that I didn't get any pics of my kicking his ass, but this is Kid-Niki's Serious Fun NES Page, so you should generally accept the fact that after 34 smashed controllers, I did in fact absolutely decimate the WCW Master with repeated headbutts for about 4 minutes straight. And then I remembered to get the screen grabs shown here. I am, however, a little disappointed that I was only informed of my "VICTORY", and that nobody told me "CONGRADULATION" or "CONGRADULATIONS". It happens.

Go on...