401 · WWF Wrestlemania Challenge

• Go head-to-head with eight of the biggest WWF Superstars
• Introduction
• Hosts: Mike (run of show), Joe (excited contrarian), Sean (cynical historian).
• What it is: 1990 LJN-published, Rare-developed WWF game with a distinctive isometric ring view, a simple timing-based grapple/strike system, and multiple match types (1v1, Tag, Survivor Series).
• Why it matters: A big leap over the first NES WWF WrestleMania—cleaner visuals, a more readable ring, and the debut of the “Yourself” custom-named wrestler for single-player title climbs.
• On‑air openers
• The isometric camera or the roster?
• Did you main a real superstar or stick with “Yourself” to run the ladder?
• YOURSELF as the birth of the iconic character creator in sports games?
• Release, Credits & Context
• Year/Platforms: NES (1990, NA/EU).
• Developer/Publisher: Rare for LJN (WWF license).
• Place in series: Follows NES WWF WrestleMania (1989); precedes WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge (1992).
• Presentation: Ring announcer-style title cards, short anthemic themes, large TV-broadcast ring angle.
• Modes & Match Types (teach early; drop questions inside)
• Exhibition (1v1): Pick any superstar or Yourself for a quick match.
• Tag Team: 2‑on‑2 with on‑the‑apron partner; hot tags swing momentum.
• Survivor Series: 3‑on‑3 elimination—pin or count‑out to remove opponents until one side remains.
• Championship / Title Run (solo): As Yourself, climb a gauntlet of WWF stars to win the belt.
• Roster (call out highlights; not exhaustive)
• Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, “Macho King” Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Ravishing Rick Rude, Big Boss Man, HACKSAW JIM DUGGIN plus the player‑avatar Yourself.
• Each superstar has stat‑tuned tendencies (damage/pace) but no unique animated finishers—wins come from timing, positioning, and stamina management rather than signature moves.
• Discuss now
• Did you pick based on kayfabe fandom or on who “felt” strongest in-game?
• Which entrance theme snippet lives rent‑free in your head—and does it match the in‑ring feel?
• Controls, Camera & Core Mechanics
• Isometric ring: Does the isometric angle feel intuitive or does it cause missed lines and whiffs?
• Strikes & grapples:
  • A/B perform light/heavy strikes depending on distance and timing.
  • Close‑in clinch triggers a simple grapple resolution—who pressed at the right time gets the throw/slam.
  • Running attacks off the ropes and corner strikes are context‑sensitive.
• Tag basics: Stand near your corner and input to tag; partner recovers slowly off‑screen.
• Defense: Step off‑angle to make strikes miss; bait whiffs and counter‑clinch.
• Pins & Kick‑outs: Pin a weakened foe; the defender mashes to kick out before the 3‑count.
• Ring‑out & Count‑outs: You can spill outside—ref counts toward 10; re‑enter to break the count.
• Stamina/Health & Momentum Flow
• Health bars drain toward the center of the HUD; red → yellow → critical.
• Do Momentum swings exist: Hot tags, rope rebounds, etc.
• Discuss now
• Better to grind with jabs or fish for early grapples—what wins more often for you?
• Single‑Player Ladder (Yourself → Champion)
• Yourself: Enter a custom name; balanced stats.
• Gauntlet: Face mid‑carders first, then top stars
• Continue/Retry: Password or limited continues depending on region; losing late in the gauntlet stings.
• Discuss now
• Does the sparse audio help the “arena” vibe, or does it need more pump‑up music between falls?
• The bell has rung and the ref is counting. Is this a three-count for the ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST?

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 WWF WrestleMania Challenge! Go head to head with eight of the biggest WWF superstars!

00:24 And welcome to NEStalgia! 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? Wrestle-sona? No, no. Your R-sona? 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?

00:52 Uh, you know, uh, Shiesty Sean. Shiesty Sean. Yeah, I'm Mikey Murder. You're 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 like, trying to protect their favorite wrestler. Like, he's gonna murder them! Dude, do people, uh, do the people already know that your, uh, childhood screen name was Mikey Murder? Yeah, that childhood.

01:18 Um, childhood, actually, that's funny, because that's like a whole, that's a whole other conversation for everybody, right? There, nobody ever had a good AOL screen name. No, no, no. Nobody's proud of their AOL screen name. Uh-huh. Mine was Game Player Me, because M-E are my initials. Uh-huh. So, it was like, I guess some Yoda-ism, where like, you know, me a game player. Like, I, I, I play the games. Uh, uh, what was yours?

01:43 Oh, I had BBQ 90. BBQ? Did you love BBQ 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, is the, is the BBQ one, like, when people were saying like, oh my god, what the fuck, BBQ sauce, do you remember? Like, that would just be like a string of letters that you could throw together? It definitely preceded that little, so random era of, you know, humor, yeah. Ahead of the curve, actually. You should have invested in BBQ. I should have. I should be the Stubbs guy.

02:18 So, this is, uh, 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.

02:46 Yourself is now the custom-named wrestler in this game, where it's supposed to be you, but it's missing the, 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.

03:10 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, 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?

03:39 Well, 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 in 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, now you have like a, you know, a new superstar, a new guy to lead the next generation, and didn't quite pay off, and Hulk wound up winning a bunch more times, but

04:22 did you, 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 have, if I see Randy Savage, I guess Macho King Randy Savage now, you have to clarify that to me, but 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.

04:56 Yeah, and I wouldn't say like, 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 leave 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? He does look the most pedestrian.

05:26 Yeah. A cop? Come on. Yeah, he's just sort of wearing like a, like a button-up shirt, and 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, 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, like that's, that's not a personality, buddy.

05:50 I never heard of him. 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

06:16 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. Like, for me, that's the Macho Man, not so much graduation, but 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, and that's fine. Some of them are great. You know, they could be great if you're doing Macho Man versus Hulk, and you're just hearing two awesome theme songs switch back and forth.

06:45 It's a little weirder when it's like, yourself, because like, you don't even know that theme song. Like, 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.

07:00 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. And it's like, yeah, of course that's going to be my theme song.

07:17 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. Like, what is your goal when you're creating a character? I'm trying to create a cohesive, holistic vibe of a dude or gal.

07:52 And sometimes that means that, like, but I also have trouble using the other theme songs, or especially in, like, the much more recent ones where you can sort of queue up and key and 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're walking 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.

08:33 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 just standard, like, lightning bolt video stuff behind you. It's, uh, I don't know what I'm saying right now, but it's the plight of the creative character enjoyer. Right.

08:53 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, uh... But, like, what, are you going to give yourself, like, a t-shirt? Like, are you just going to wear regular clothes? Like, no, you've got to make yourself, but, like, cool. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm really good at that.

09:20 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, just 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.

09:44 Absolutely. Now, before we move on, I just need you to explain to me what this macho king thing is, because... 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, like... That's a babyface. Babyface means, like, you're the crowd pleaser. Like, that's... I don't know why they came up with that term. I never understood it, but I'm sure there's some deep... deep lore explanation for it. Okay. You're either a heel or you're a babyface.

10:18 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.

10:39 You know? It's one of those things. Okay. Good to know. He didn't, like, win an award or something. No, I didn't think so. I did figure it was some storyline. And I know that he has many different iterations. I just never knew that his name would have changed. Yeah. Yeah, but if you think about it, right? It's just... He goes from macho man to macho king.

10:57 Just a matter of time before we 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 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.

11:42 And yet, wrestling never went there, right? Like, why... This is... WWF, huge brand. Uh-huh. 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, you know, a side-scrolling game, like, right? Where you play as, like, Hulk and take down, 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.

12:17 Yeah, me too. 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.

12:50 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, 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. Um, I think this is around the time... So I can see, like, if there was a time where, like, they, if everybody thought, like, football

13:17 was rigged, which it, it may or may not be, um, that there wouldn't be any semblance of, like, an NFL blitz ever. So, maybe. I don't know. 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, do you know what I'm talking about? Mm-mm. Okay. Uh, he was trying to show, like, that wrestling was real or whatever, and, um, it was Richard, uh, Belzer. So he, so he assaulted a guy. Yeah, he put him in, he put him in a headlock, and unfortunately, he, you know, he didn't get any air, so he passed out on stage, hit his head on the floor, too. Oh, no. So that's not good.

14:03 Um, and that was, apparently, I just looked it up, that was five years, um, from, from 1990s. That was 1985. 1985. But the, but the lawsuit, I guess, happened in 1990. So that's how long it, it took five years to sue him. Is that when he started saying Hulkamaniac, or was this? No, Hulkamaniacs was, like, 84, 85. Like, that, that stuff was. God. And look about it, everybody was a Hulkamaniac. It's kind of crazy Richard Belzer wasn't a Hulkamaniac.

14:32 That he needed to be proven. And that, you know, 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. You know what I'm just saying? Like, of course they're going to show you, like, oh, you think it's fake? And then they punch you, right? Like, it's like, don't upset a bear. Like, they're, even if it's fake, they still have the ability to beat the shit out of you. They still get CTE. Right.

14:57 On to the game. Never funny. I can't believe you went there. I would never say something like that. That you didn't hear that. Direct 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? Like, it was on that view point. It was a square instead of a diamond. Yes. Yeah. But it was also, yeah, exactly. Like, half the ring was cut out. Like, 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.

15:46 Like, 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.

16:17 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,

16:36 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.

16:52 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, like, heads-up display is illegible because it's off the screen.

17:15 Right. Or 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. Like, as a concept, it's really cool to just, like, have it there on the side of the ring. And you're like, oh, wow. Like, we have not seen that either too often. The UI is, like, part of the environment. Like, that's really cool.

17:42 But to your point, it doesn't work if you 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 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.

18:12 And if I'm trying to do the most electrifying moves in sports entertainment, it's not even that I want to, 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.

18:40 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.

19:26 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.

19:53 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 comes in. Triple tag or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't, like, swap it on the fly. I didn't, at least I don't think so. I don't want to say that too confidently. You could. I've never 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.

20:18 Oh, I see. 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 and the, uh, I'm making a Marvel vs. Capcom joke. But, like, once you're eliminated, that opponent is out. So, that's pretty cool. Like, it's not like you're not, uh, it's not the tag team, obviously.

20:38 Like, when someone gets pinned, the match is over. So, that's cool. Uh, and then the, the whole incentive of the, like, single player mode is the title run where you just start at the, uh, the bottom and you take on, uh, 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?

21:08 Like, 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 at, 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 how, like, in wrestling, the theme song, like, comes on, and then, like, they take, like, two and a half minutes to just, like, get down to the ring, and you hear their song. He just sprinted down?

21:38 He just sprints 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 crowd. Not wave to the crowd, but, like, put it up like that. Give you a weird look, yeah. Yeah, he'd give the fingers to the crowd, which is, like, pretty ballsy. Drink a beer. I mean, Triple H would just spit on the crowd. That's pretty cool, in my opinion.

22:00 But, like, he would just come 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.

22:14 He's coked out. He was almost certainly coked out. So, that's what we're missing, though, in this game, though, is we're missing entrances. We're missing, like, a key part of, and maybe, who knows? I don't know. Like, 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 gotta go commit 100% to that. And it's noticeably missing that they don't have cool entrances. Because, like, even Andre the Giant could have came out and had his manager alongside him, Bobby the Brain Heenan.

22:55 And Hulk Hogan could have came out and did his, you know, ripped the shirt. Like, 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 cut scene at the beginning of each bout. Like, and you've almost gotten there.

23:27 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. Because then you have. Was one of you wanted to do the Giant?

24:02 No, no. Actually, glad you mentioned him, though. Andre is the best looking sprite in the game. Like, he's got that. 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.

24:19 Of course. 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 Andre 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?

24:50 He's 570 pounds. I mean, I didn't know that they were going to 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. 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, for the first time ever, it was like, cool, somebody checked in on this. Can you just like, you just trip him maybe?

25:34 Yeah. Or is he a completely unstoppable force? Right. No, you just, yeah. 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?

25:48 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'm just, I just wish it controlled a little tighter and that the grappling wasn't so awkward. Those, those, when you grapple, there's like a, I guess a timing window for like, who pressed at the right time gets the, gets to do the slam. Like, it doesn't, 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.

26:24 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 I, the, 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 stamina left. But it just felt like anytime I, I threw a punch, I was just leaving myself open for a hold or, or a, 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.

27:16 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.

27:53 I don't know.

28:20 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. Where 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,

28:49 you know, 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.

29:15 Like I'm not doing the kind of like when you're playing NES baseball, like you're not going to hit every pitch. Like 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 like, 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 biggest sin for me was whenever you down an opponent, I feel like when you're down, it takes an effort to get back up.

29:58 But when you have to, when you down the computer, they're, they get up pretty fast. Like if you're trying to go in for a, for a pin, you, 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.

30:25 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 that of the, of the very little wrestling I've actually watched. Like 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.

30:45 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.

31:04 Hulk, Hulk would do the thing where all of a sudden your punches wouldn't work on him anymore. Like you 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, is, 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, 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?

31:40 Yeah. It's, there's no, there's no like rubber banding or, 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 of 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, uh, recover a bit of stamina. And in the other sense of momentum, which, uh, I don't think this is what you meant, but it made me think of this.

32:21 You've got this, you've, you've got this sprint mechanic. If you double tap a directional button, you will start to sprint. And I thought this was tailored for sort of like bouncing off the rope and sort of coming back in clothes lining or something like that. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, of course. That doesn't exist.

32:42 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 like, before I was looking into much of the game, I just, just playing it with Joe. Like we didn't even know you could get onto the turnbuckles. Like that's not necessarily intuitive. It's not something like 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, 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. Yeah. And he's like flying in the air to get all the way to the middle of it.

33:21 Those are the cool moments of this game. I just wonder if it needed, because wrestling is such a, a presentational thing, right? If it needed more of that. It did. There would have been like a funny, if there could have been a funny story mode. 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 so hard.

33:57 This is not a game. 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.

34:07 I'm sure. 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 is 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?

34:38 Oh, I think I did read that there is some very small asteroid that is orbiting us. Yeah, going to be orbiting us for like a while, like another 20 years or so. And it's just kind of like, it's like, hmm. 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 like satellite that we've shot into space a moon.

35:08 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.

35:19 But for this game, right? Like what could they have realistically done? They're not going to add like more fights, right? Because there really weren't like there is no such thing as a ladder match at this time. So they're not going to have that. They weren't really like going under the... Yeah, no hell in a cell. They weren't going to like go under the ring and grab objects yet. Like I'm sure that that had happened. But like it is kind of weird that you can't throw your opponent into the steel steps.

35:50 They're there. They should. Maybe just like it needed more of that. It needed more like ring ambiance. Because like even when you leave the ring and you get that count out to 10 and everything,

36:01 like 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 them 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 to three. Like there's not much more to the fights than that, I suppose. Like there's not a lot of randomness to this.

36:35 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 the 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 wouldn't really need to. The fans should be holding up signs.

37:16 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? Yeah, that's weird, right? No, you just bring like a disposable camera.

37:45 Have you ever heard of it? No. You don't remember bringing it? No, I know you do, but I'm just teasing for a second. Like you bring a disposable camera to like what, like 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 how to use a camera. Like you weren't thinking about the exposure or anything. Like those photos are useless.

38:14 But you keep them anyway. You keep them, but then like 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?

38:39 Little extra presentational flair there because 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 essential games list, but just for me to like go back to it. Like 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.

39:21 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.

39:46 And just there's always going to be a point added to my out of 10 score if Macho Man is there, just because, you know, he is what I feel like I wanted to be. But I'm not that. I'm not that. I'll never be that. And I'm sorry.

40:08 Oh, not essential. Yeah. I was going to say, I need the 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 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. Got it. From that point forward. King of the Ring was just like another pay-per-view they had, you know?

40:46 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 Sergeant 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, you know, US 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.

41:31 And become such a hated character that he was getting death threats. And like they had to like, they had to like cancel that shit. They were like, what do we do with this? Like, oh man. But yeah, that's next year. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Don't say it.

41:57 Yep. Are you sure it wasn't Sergeant's Laughter? Sergeant's Laughter. Yeah, it could be, right? Where it depends. Sergeant's Laughter. Sergeant Slaughter also though, you know, 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.

42:18 Was there 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.

42:30 And I have that on VHS and I remember watching it many times. And 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.

43:03 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. No, no, no.

43:41 We should have a sweepstakes.