A competitive Esports tournament Pro Wrestling game? O.K. T.K.O! Let's make it so...???

Wrestling games have never been a big part of FGC or Esports in general. But that might be about to change with the WWE now part of Endeavor and TKO holdings. Because this partnership also includes UFC, it only seems like a matter of time before the WWE interests and business practices align more with UFC then the previous administration. And that includes the possibility of making a competitive game that can be tailored for Esports.  Could we actually have a WWE game in the FGC that was made this century? 

This episode looks at the history of Wrestling, MMA, and Boxing games under the fighting game category, the WWE's confusing Esports history, and why EA is probably the only company to wrestling Esports possible. And my proof comes from the FGC.  If you don't believe me, listen to the podcast and you may understand why I said that. 

For Guest Inquires, Q&A questions for the live broadcast, and concerns about errors I may have made with the information said in the podcast. Feel free to email me at jonisbrasko@gmail.com. New episodes will be released around every 3 to 4 weeks.
I'm not considering sponsorships at this time, so all inquiries in that regard will not be responded to.

Thanks again for listening and I hope I made your day a little better.

Transcript

JonisBrasko (00:02.894)
Good day folks, this is JonisBrasko, the host of the Fighting Game Banter Podcast. I had to wait till the end of April because so much happened during the month that I just had to wait till the end before I could record. So even though it's taking me a long to get back to this, I feel like I'm going to be presenting things with better quality compared to quantity. And the reason why I had to wait till the end of April is because in the FGC, there's two events that gets everyone's attention.

The first one is WrestleMania, because a lot of people in the FGC love wrestling. And that was great storytelling with Cody Rhodes finally finishing the story and winning the WWE Universal title over Roman Reigns. The second thing, of course, is EVO Japan, where another wrestler, ET, would win KOF 15 with Clark Still.

which is primarily his main, even though it's a three person team, it's Clark, the literal grappler of KOF, is the one that he's really associated with. And you don't have to take my word for it. If you have a copy of Fight of Steel, you can actually unlock ET as a playable character. And when you unlock him, he is wearing a Clark Still outfit, i .e. not exactly the same, and it has ET,

the shirt, but the pants, the boots, you get the idea. You know, it's Clark. So that's not even a thing. Now you may be wondering while we're talking about wrestling and fighting games and the answer is the fact that It's a weird story between both of them like fighting games wrestling games boxing games and MMA have a very interesting

relationship with each other. And before we continue, I'm going to head mentioned that I don't have a, I don't have a personal preference or anything to gain in this. So I'm going in saying that I'm not WWE, WWF. I'm not WCW. I'm not UFC, Pride, Fight Night, any of that. That stuff is.

JonisBrasko (02:30.734)
That's not what, yes, that's what the topic is about, but I don't have any personal dog in this fight. To be honest, since about 2000, I've been Team Fire Pro because I can do all those things in that game. And I'm going to have access to more moves and I can create my own character. I don't necessarily have to go to one franchise or another when I can do pretty much all the things that those franchises have

in one game. So yeah, I've pretty much been Team Fire Pro since Six Man Scramble on the Sega Saturn. But the main reason is because until you until award shows or game award shows had things like individual sports games, a lot of the

sport fighting type games, your UFC's, your even WWE/WCW games, your Fight Nights were actually in the best fighting game category. And to give a great example, when the D.I.C.E. Awards first started,

JonisBrasko (03:45.806)
The first two awards 1997 -1998 went to WCW Wrestling Games.

JonisBrasko (03:55.47)
We're going to get back, you know, which were made by um, AKI Stuk, AKI Corporation. The nice thing about those games are the fact that even though they're WCW ones, they had such a legacy and they'd so great that the WWF got out of their contract with Acclaim because it was Acclaim that we're making the WWF games at the time. And then started to work with.

Aki Corporation. So even though I'm talking about WCW, NWO, Revenge and Sold Out, it's also the fact that the wrestling games from that time that most people think about with WWF games like No Mercy and WrestleMania 2000, those are also Aki Corporation games using the same engine, just

different franchises. which I find interesting that they did that, but it's really kind of cool in the long run. And don't get me wrong. The WCW wrestling games in 97 and 98 were good, but what would upset most people is the fact that what games they beat. So in 97, they beat games like

Bloody Roar, Bushido Blade II, Street Fighter EX plus Alpha, and even, and don't get me wrong, they're not the only ones. In 2006, Fight Night 3 won best fighting game and it beat out Tekken Dark Resurrection and Mortal Kombat Armageddon.

Now granted, a UFC game has never won an award, but they're usually attached to the fighting game category for the most part.

JonisBrasko (06:04.366)
So with all this being said...

We're talking about where wrestling fits in to not just the fighting game community, but also if a wrestling game can become an eSport competitive game.

The reason why I'm mentioning this is because the WWE in itself has been involved in Esports for a while, but they've never actually put their game into an Esports, any of their wrestling games into an Esports competition.

Usually when you think of a WWE game in like an FGC event, it's usually, usually WrestleMania the arcade game back from the 1990s with the help of Midway.

But now that Endeavor and TKO Holdings has the WWE under their umbrella, and UFC, is also in their umbrella, it's very possible within the next few years that if there is going to be an Esports type wrestling game with WWE, it's gonna be through EA.

JonisBrasko (07:35.598)
Because, UFC already has that established relationship and that this is something that could actually take it to the next level. And also, of course, make money, get all the microtransactions and everything anyway. Not saying that they're having a bad relationship with 2K Sports. I don't want anyone to think otherwise. It's just that if it's going to be that next level and...

You can clearly see Endeavor and the UFC influence on the WWE product right now. You're starting to see some of the same sponsors actually, you know, like Prime in the middle of the ring. So it is very possible that this may be something on the horizon.

But before we go to that level, let's start with what the WWE has done with Esports.

So in 2017, WWE actually invests in Esports organizations. The most notable one is Cloud9. Now granted, this is 2017, so they had a lot bigger teams. However, at this current time, they literally only have three fighting game players. One Street Fighter kick, uh...

JonisBrasko (09:05.006)
One Street Fighter 6 player with JB, one Super Smash Brothers Melee player with Mang0, and one Tekken player with YuYu. That is it. Everything else is like League of Legends, Rocket League, Counter-Strike, etc. But what most people know about also in 2017 is Xavier Woods hosted a WWE

IGN Showdown, where they had various WWE superstars like Kofi Kingston, Sasha Banks, now Mercedes Mone, Bayley, AJ Styles, Cesaro, now Claudio, All were playing, you know, actually competing in like an Esports tournament. thing. The thing about it is they weren't playing a WWE game.

They were playing Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite.

JonisBrasko (10:11.054)
So that in itself is kind of telling you where the WWE games are as far as the Esports aspect. Now, before we move any further, we just got to, I'm going to give props to Xavier Woods. One, I mean, he has been, he has been grinding. He's been like really trying to promote, you know, Esports and gaming and having a really, really positive outlook on it.

And For those in the fighting game community, let's not forget he is your savior for Windjammers. He is the reason you have a Windjammers 2.

So yeah, give some props to Xavier Woods if you ever get a chance and you're a huge Windjammers fan.

But even though that happened and there was nothing that came more from that series with IGN, there was actual speculation that there was going to be a WWE gaming league or Esports league. It was rumored to be called the Superstar Gaming League and this was something that was supposed to happen or that was talked about and of course in 2019.

Needless to say, we don't really have to talk about why that did not happen because the answer is simple, 2020.

JonisBrasko (11:44.622)
And for the most part, that's pretty much it with WWE and like an Esports environment or Esports activities. Now UFC on the other hand, they've been on the ball.

Like they literally have one, a league known as the Esports Fight League. It's great for actually showing off, you know, players. They usually have weekly events. They have community tournaments and they're pretty much backed by EA and the UFC franchise. They have commentary. They have streams.

There are pros and there are legitimately UFC Esports teams. Probably the most notable is Elite Kings. They are the longest UFC Esports team on the planet and they've been around since 2016.

You won't think about it, but yeah, and if you get a chance to watch A UFC, a UFC Esports stream, specifically UFC 5 It may seem weird at first, but the commentators really do a good job of kind of explaining Everything it's not necessarily like color analysts, but for.

but they do try to get some things out for the people who are watching for the first time. So if you get a chance, check them out. I will put a link at the bottom of the Podcast because I don't think a lot of people even know that all not, you know, like Esports UFC is even that deep. It exists, it runs, it may not get the popular aspects of like Evo or CEO or any of.

JonisBrasko (13:51.278)
the big fighting game competitions, even some of the smaller ones like Texas Showdown. But it's there, they've had a tight community and clearly they've been around for a while. Maybe not as long as Evo or CEO, but they are here, they're doing their thing. And I gotta give them props for that.

But don't make me... I want you to also know I haven't forgot about all the Fight... the boxers. Because in the middle of the month of April, some stuff started to be talked about with EA reviving the Fight Night franchise.

Certain boxers such as Raymond Floyd, sorry, such as Raymond Ford and Oscar De La Hoya started posting stuff on their social media. Old pictures, rumors, and all we can do is wait and see. If there is another Fight Night, I'm sure there's a lot of people that would like it. And while it may not have the bells and whistles of a wrestling game, there's people who do appreciate

the solid gameplay, the mechanics.

the way the characters move. And unlike most games that are using Unreal or Unity, EA has been using for these games the Frostbite engine, which is really good. It's taxing, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it's a really good engine.

JonisBrasko (15:37.966)
So keep those things in mind if you do actually download and play an EA game.

But before I wrap this up, I'm just going to point out that...

JonisBrasko (15:54.382)
The probably the main concern I have about if there is a wrestling Esports game and if it's because of the Endeavor Takeover, it's not going to be available to the wider FGC. And that separation is probably still going to be there like the FGC to UFC games. And

probably two of the main reasons for that is both sponsorship and community.

JonisBrasko (16:32.302)
One thing that's clear with EA games, especially with you look at the UFC and there are so many sponsors, and there's no guarantee that there's going to be a fighting game tournament that is sponsored by someone else that have similar products are going to allow that. Unless there is an option to turn off all sponsorships,

like a blank ring, no Prime, no Toyo tires, no ESPN +, then I don't see that necessarily happening.

Probably the same with WWE. honestly, cuz I'm pretty sure you're going to see more and more sponsors in the ring. Not just in the ring, but outside. Yes, I'm used to watching and seeing the Slim Jim, but actually seeing that stuff while you're trying to play the game is honestly kind of distracting, and I really don't want that.

JonisBrasko (17:40.046)
So even if this happens, I think in the general aspect, I think it is going to be separate. And I think it is slowly going to be an EA thing. Just like with Madden, it's going to be, yes, you're going to have those hardcore fans. You're going to have that competitive scene, but it's not going to necessarily mix. It's really pretty much you're going to do one or the other.

Now, I know that I'm saying only from my personal experience, if you have been to an FGC event and they are running UFC and they're running a WWE game, not necessarily like the 2K series, but maybe even something like All Stars or Battlegrounds, something more exaggerated arcade kind of style, let me know because I have no problem coming back

at another time, which I plan on doing and making corrections. and doing it like I was wrong here. But these are only things that I've observed.

And the second thing when I mentioned expression is the fact that even if you're playing a wrestling game,

the immersion from competing is not from the wrestler itself. The immersion is your own personal actions. Like, As fun as it is to create a character, have them have their own music and pyro and stuff.

JonisBrasko (19:23.662)
It doesn't be.

experiencing a tournament and you're like top eight or top six and they're saying your name and you're going down and you have that wrestling entrance. CEO they literally give you a chance to make your own entrance. You come down the ramp and you get into the ring. And if you win CEO, you actually get a championship belt. Not just a medal, not just a crystal store.

trophy. Nothing against the crystal trophies because they're awesome. But you get a belt. And that's awesome. That is something that.

you can't replicate.

with

JonisBrasko (20:15.118)
a tournament, I mean, A wrestling game tournament, Now granted, if they do this and in some ways, yeah, you win a belt, that's pretty awesome. Like you actually do have a, a world championship belt, you and a friend, you actually have a tag team belt. You know, if there's a women's champion, they get a belt or women's tag team, they get a belt. I think that's kind of cool. I don't know if they're going to go that deep.

However, and In fact, speaking of deep, that's the other reason there really isn't a competitive wrestling game is the fact that the game would constantly have to be patched more than probably what they want to do. With games like like FIFA, sorry, no longer FIFA, ESPN FC or Madden,

characters are constantly being tweaked and balanced. Right now, oh, Same in even UFC. Right now, I don't think the WWE has the resources to constantly tweak and balance their characters for competitive play.

JonisBrasko (21:36.686)
At least in some of the clips that I've seen of WWE gameplay, not so much from a competitive point, but more or less an eFed point of view. Yeah, There are moves that are straight broken that people can take advantage of. And I don't know how often people are going and doing reports and how often the WWE patches their games, fix bugs, et cetera.

Because, most of the time.

when there is a new release, one of the first things that usually is shown are the actual game breaking bugs.

Some of the moves, some of the animations, it's one of those things that if it happened like the FGC, I'll go ahead and say it. The FGC is fickle. You come correct or no one's gonna give you a second shot. You only get one chance to make a first impression. So that's something you gotta unfortunately make count.

And right now, I don't think they're in a position to do that. I don't think they have enough money or the resources through 2K sports. This is why if we're going to have one, it's going to have to be through a EA and with Endeavor. It's very possible that the WWE will leave 2K sports probably within the next two to three years.

JonisBrasko (23:08.718)
Now, I may be wrong. They may figure something out. But I think it would be an advantage to Endeavor to make this happen. Not to mention you can have some pretty awesome crossovers. Like, I wouldn't mind seeing like Shinsuke Nakamura, you know, go strong style in the Octagon. I think that would actually be pretty cool.

JonisBrasko (23:40.174)
but that's neither here nor there.

But before I close this out, oh, and obviously if you're a part of an eFed, keep rocking it. They are fun to watch. I love watching them on stream. I think they're funny. I remember in college, we had an eFed for Fire Pro D for the Dreamcast. And sadly, this is what happens when everyone learned how to...

Burned disc for the Dreamcast and that's how we were able to play Fire Pro D because it was an import game. Not advocating but because I still wish the Dreamcast lasted longer but yeah, it was hard playing those imports. And sometimes, sadly, you know, you take the easy way because there's a game you want, you can't play it and that's one of the only options.

but

JonisBrasko (24:42.67)
Going back to 2001 for a moment, Aki Corporation, now known as syn Sophia, because stuff happens, they were working on a WCW Mayhem 2 game. For those who have ever played the original Mayhem, it was on PlayStation, had some back -to -work.

JonisBrasko (25:09.39)
Arena, backyard wrestling type stuff, brawling. It was a fun game, but it never got made. And the obvious reason is because of the WCW purchase by the WWF.

JonisBrasko (25:28.302)
But they've made this game, or they had these assets, the moves were there, but they were able to repurpose it.

And in 2003, we got Def Jam Vendetta. So if you wonder why that game primarily focuses on wrestling and, you know, being in a ring and things along that nature, that is the reason, because it was taken from a canceled WCW game.

But it's the year after that most people know about. Because then we got Def Jam Fight for New York, which took that same Aki Corporation wrestling system and expanded it. Now, whether you want to call it an arena fighter, whether you want to call it a wrestling game,

does not matter. I'm sure there's people who have opinions about it and they are more than welcome to comment on it.

But at the end of the day...

JonisBrasko (26:42.286)
That's what people play in the FGC.

They're going with Def Jam. Because Def Jam, if nothing else, one, the gameplay is great. Even though it's a wrestling game, there's enough stuff in it to make the game stand out.

to make you invested. The other thing is the acting, is the characters, is exactly what people want from wrestling. People that are with over exaggerated characteristics of themselves.

JonisBrasko (27:26.382)
And that's the other thing that's kind of appealing. Like, if nothing else.

How many of you that have played Fight for New York get frustrated by playing against Fat Joe as Crack? You have Fat Joe, his voice and everything and he's exaggerated to himself to this different character.

Plus, he is a fun mid -boss. I hated fighting him, but he was fun. He put you into the corner and then out of nowhere, he would do a pedigree. And that was frustrating, but that was great because that's exactly something you would expect a mid -boss to do.

push you around, be aggressive, and do something that you wouldn't even expect. If I saw Fat Joe do a pedigree in real life, I'd probably mark out. I'd probably go crazy. Because that's not something I would expect to see, but I still think it's awesome that he did it.

But yes, Snoop Dogg exaggerated version of himself. Same with Method Man as Blaze. You know, you even have Henry Rollins in there rocking it as the trainer. And it's just all cool. And again, like wrestling these are real people and they're playing their characters and even over exaggerating the characters.

JonisBrasko (29:12.366)
But it's fun, it's captivating. And yes, you have in wrestling, you have a create your character, but also in Fight for New York, you did too. But yet it's more immersive to the story. Yes, the appeal of wrestling watching it is the story. But when you're playing the game and even going through the story mode, it's not the same.

versus going through Def Jam and it's like, you're really in there. You're really making decisions that affect the game. Like I really feel immersive when I play Def Jam. And even when I'm just playing people versus tournament and I'm just using the default characters, there's enough of an atmosphere and stuff going on that...

I don't think that the WWE or AEW and NWA, TNA that I don't think have hit it quite on the head yet. So I could be wrong. There could be like the most awesome backstage fighting aspects of 2K24 that I may not.

know anything about that's comparable to Def Jam, but...

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I've noticed. The default, you can play Def Jam with the default characters. It can be competitive and it can be fun.

JonisBrasko (30:54.446)
A wrestling game.

like 2K24 or Fight Forever the appeal is seeing what your character can do what you can do with something that you created not necessarily with the people that are already in the game

JonisBrasko (31:21.39)
And despite that, UFC straddles that line pretty well. Yes, it's cool to create your character in that, but at the same time, there's enough exaggeration and there's enough...

character aspect that you can work with it. Yes, you may not have the flashy entrances. Yes, you may not see the biggest pop -offs in tournaments and stuff. But it seems for the most part to have a happy medium.

JonisBrasko (31:59.374)
In any case, I'd like to feel that there is a future for wrestling games to hit Esports. There's definitely a future for boxing to hit Esports. I mean, there's people tried to do ready for rumble and ready to rumble to are Ready 2 Rumble 2.

But I don't really consider that to be like a true tournament game, but I know there are people who do it. If Nintendo actually made a two player punch out.

That would.

JonisBrasko (32:40.142)
That would be awesome. That would work great, but you know how Nintendo is, thou shall not touch smash. And so far, ARMS is pretty much the closest thing we're going to get to that.

JonisBrasko (32:55.662)
Still, Def Jam seems to be the standard fighting game, the standard wrestling game for the FGC.

And I'll go ahead and mention one other thing that hurts wrestling games versus fighting games with wrestlers in them is that the wrestlers in fighting games do have that exaggeration, do have that charisma, do have that presence that the wrestlers in those games don't have. King stands out substantially. Zangief stands out. Clark stands out. Tizoc/

King of Dinosaurs stands out. R. Mika stands out.

Marduk stands out. He's not in the game, but who knows? Gai Tendo stands out. Yeah, I'm throwing that Biriki One in there. All these wrestling type characters, Shermie. Good gracious, Shermie. All of them stand out. You put... And this is the fun thing with EFEDS. This is the fun thing with the custom characters is the fact that...

It's these fighting game characters that people will actually create to take on WWE or AEW.

JonisBrasko (34:24.174)
Heck, most of the time when I did play things like, of course, SmackDown, Here Comes the Pain, I'd always try to make SMK characters. I'd always try to make like Shermie or Clark.

JonisBrasko (34:44.75)
I couldn't make Terry, but yeah, geese. I mean, I literally did try to make like a counter wrestling character that just did nothing but throws.

I know that sounds weird, but...

JonisBrasko (34:59.022)
That's I think the weird thing is that it's a lot more fun to create your own character and run an eFed versus play the game itself with the default wrestlers. And that in itself is the biggest hang up I feel.

In regards to why there is no competitive wrestling game. Even with what I mentioned with Xavier Woods, even what I mentioned with the WWE investing in Cloud9, They're not submitting their own games for Esports. They're not playing their own games for Esports.

You can say what you want about Marvel versus Capcom Infinite, but the fact that they're playing that and not 2K17 should be a testament to itself. You may not like Infinite, but Infinite has a lot more balance than a WWE game.

JonisBrasko (36:21.614)
I'm going to take out this pause, But, I also want to thank everyone for actually listening to this Podcast. I feel that because I was able to take my time, go a little bit longer, that this will be better quality compared to the ones in the past. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to help, I'm doing this out of my own pocket. It will be greatly appreciated.

I will leave links to articles I reference, things that people should watch, and the description. And I really hope you enjoy this episode. April, 2024 was a weird month, but it gave a lot of news. It gave a lot of interesting things for the FGC. And I'm not talking just Evo Japan. I'm talking...

What could possibly be expanded?

JonisBrasko (37:29.998)
And if you think that the FGC would embrace UFC or a WWE game for like a side tournament or something, you know, let the tournament organizers know. Let's like, Hey, let's Try to actually, you know, have a dedicated setup. We'll see, we'll See about running it and how it goes. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. but.

I think it would be fun to try. I don't think you can do a wrestling game though because I think there's way too many people who are like, I would rather play with my own character because it does have, it does reflect me more. It does have more charisma. It is more of what I want compared to what is given.

JonisBrasko (38:21.582)
But as always, I want to thank you for joining me. We're going to expand this out where instead of every two weeks, we're going to shoot for three weeks because I think I will be able to give a better product.

JonisBrasko (38:35.566)
But there's some other stuff that happened at EVO Japan. And believe me, that's what we're going to talk about with our next episode.

JonisBrasko (38:51.47)
Thanks again, wherever you are. Good morning. Good evening. Good night.

and enjoy your fights.