Building a Virtual Wrestling Career With Wrestling Empire
The sim shows all parts of the pro wrestler’s journey
Five years after graduating from wrestling school, here I was in the main event of the Tokyo Dome show, challenging the International World Champion of wrestling, with a capacity crowd creating the big fight atmosphere. The referee explains the rules to us, all the while I’ve got butterflies hoping I don’t blow this opportunity, especially after spending so many years scratching and clawing just to get there. The bell sounds to start the match, and after a grueling contest with the champion, I finally achieve the three count that would change my life. The referee raises my arm as the victor and hands me the golden belt that had eluded me for so long.
None of this really happened, of course, as I am a 32-year-old academic who would never have the dedication nor discipline to get into shape for any sport, let alone wrestling. In actuality, the events described above were the outcome 40 real-world hours it took to get my wrestling avatar to win the world heavyweight title, in the career mode of Wrestling Empire. This is a game that is not quite a sports simulator, and although it involves beating people up, doesn’t fit the category of a competitive fighting game either. Instead, it represents a homage to, and also a reintroduction of, one of the best gaming pastimes.
The popularity of pro wrestling video games really peaked during the early 2000s. For many of us, pro wrestling at one point became a widely watched TV product. Naturally, the video game tie-ins were inevitable, which was probably a great way to prevent kids from trying wrestling moves at home (from experience: we still copied the stuff from TV regardless). Back in the day, those of us with N64s were having an absolute riot playing WWF No Mercy with friends in-between rounds of Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye.
Those over on the PlayStation front had the hugely successful WWF SmackDown! (an IP which now survives under the guise of WWE 2K) when taking a break from highly competitive rounds of Tekken 3. Wrestling games were once the ultimate couch multiplayer romp, and it also helped that you could use the games’ creation suite to invent your own comical wrestlers. More often than not, these creations were our superhero alter egos come to life.
Wrestling as a video game genre is a bit like playing with action figures, powered by a virtual overdrive of imagination. For those of us who love the spectacle of the sports entertainment product on TV, and also the creative energy of the games, the lines of all the make-believe blur so much that the wrestling video game almost feels synonymous with the real thing. At their best, a wrestling video game provides players a canvas for their own creative mayhem, whether it involves getting into multiplayer shenanigans with friends or creating a fantasy wrestling career and universe without any restrictions. Although the genre itself hasn’t quite received the same praise in recent years, Wrestling Empire as a game encapsulates everything which made the art of virtual grappling so endearing in the first place.
Of course, the less-than-stellar Metacritic score of Wrestling Empire paints a rather unflattering picture, and yet the player reception has been the complete opposite of the critics’, where the dedication of the game’s intended audience speaks for itself. Although landing on Switch over a week after Kota Ibushi captured his first IWGP Championship at the January 4, 2021 Tokyo Dome show (not relevant but I still wanted to mention it!), Wrestling Empire as a project has been in development for the better part of the last two decades, as a completely solitary endeavor by creator Mat Dickie.
Having his game on a Nintendo console, as a throwback to the days of wrestling on the N64, had been a long term goal of the creator. It also speaks to how wrestling fandom can really affect so many people in different ways, and for Mat Dickie it was about using his largely self-taught game development talents to carve a niche. The game first began life under the name of Wrestling Mpire back in the early 2000s, then further evolving into the hugely successful Wrestling Revolution 3D, before being polished into its current iteration.
Wrestling Empire is, for the lack of a better term, absolutely bonkers. It’s a game where players can make use of the wrestlers to do some pretty cool things, such as stacking 10 tables on top of one another and then body slamming their foe as they come crashing down onto the ring canvas. There’s steel cages and even explosives too, and so it’s hard not to be entertained when the game allows players do whatever it is they want to inside the squared circle.
The graphics are primitive and there are glitches aplenty, but that’s all part of the over-the-top entertainment wrestling games are best known for providing. This assumes the core grappling gameplay is smooth and intact, of course, as the slew of glitches that plagued the last WWE 2K release were certainly not entertaining in the slightest. In Wrestling Empire the moments are a result of one’s imagination, as creator Mat Dickie so eloquently puts it: the game can be pure magic if you allow it to. Good or bad, you see what you want to see.
Although a spectacle with bright lights, rock music, and crazy stunts, wrestling is a strange art form, where the wrestlers are essentially actors who perform all of their own stunts in front of a live audience. Certainly, it is scripted or even “fake” if you wish to be very blunt about it, but the pain and endurance it takes to be successful in the unforgiving pro wrestling industry are as real as it gets. The Wrestler (2008) starring Mickey Rourke was a sincere and honest insight on the incredible highs and crushing lows that come with pursuing the pro wrestling dream, and though Wrestling Empire allows you to do all the fun and crazy stuff, the career mode in the game presents a more grounded experience, with life lessons abound.
In navigating the career mode, simply learning how to play the game well enough to win matches is just a small part of what it means to succeed as a pro wrestler. As part of the complete pro wrestling journey, Wrestling Empire will have you negotiate contracts, navigate workplace politics, secure your employment, and above all else, look after your health.
When I first got into the career mode I was a bit of an idealist. I had a vision for my wrestling character, everything from his attire to his signature pose, and so each time management wanted me to change things up a bit I would refuse. As time went on, my reputation got tainted and soon enough no wrestling company wanted to sign me, which then led to the proverbial game over. Despite this setback, I was able to rejoin the wrestling business again after a brief stint in acting. That’s the funny thing about wrestling because unless they’re simply not alive, retirement to a wrestler is nothing but a temporary break. There’s always a comeback run, there’s always one more match. For example, just recently a 61-year-old Sting (portrayed by Steve Borden) resumed his wrestling career.
Much like the real thing, health and longevity are crucial in the career mode of Wrestling Empire as well. Sure, you can put your wrestler’s body through tables or have them jump off the roof of cage structures for all the thrills, but it’s all fun and games until your virtual wrestling creation gets seriously hurt. Injuries occur in real-time during a match, and can have sudden and altering consequences on a wrestling career.
Sometimes an injury results in being out of action for a few months, even if it means losing a hard-earned spot in the proverbial ladder of a wrestling company, while other times it can force an early retirement which usually leads to a career in acting. To reiterate an earlier point, pro wrestlers are, at the end of the day, just that: actors. And to paraphrase a viral YouTube video from not long ago, wrestling isn’t really wrestling, it’s a TV show about wrestling.
Yet, whether you call it a sport or a spandex soap opera, the risks involved in wrestling are very much real, and the performers truly defy death in many instances. Sadly, throughout its history, the performance has led to deaths both in and out of the ring. It takes one misstep to cause a severe accident, at times even barely making it alive, only to live with a lifelong paralysis. Pro wrestling is a scary and often deadly business, and Wrestling Empire does in fact capture this harsh reality in its career mode.
As you are mindlessly putting your wrestling avatar through tables or tossing them off cages, they can basically well… die. Those playing the game for the first time will find this rather jarring and sudden, a bit like the permanent death featured in Fire Emblem games. My wrestling persona is still healthy for the moment, although he did have a spinal injury scare not long ago.
Going back to the film The Wrestler, it was an intimate look into the hardships faced by wrestling performers beyond the ring. Interestingly, although Wrestling Empire largely takes a tongue in cheek approach, it does delve into these tough realities as well. You just never know what can, out of the blue, ruin (or even end) a wrestler’s life. Your wrestling alter ego could seemingly be on top of the virtual wrestling world, but then suddenly realise how they had been struggling beyond the ring. For a game that largely looks comical, things do get harrowing and real in a hurry, almost like living through an episode of Dark Side of the Ring.
Wrestling Empire is a celebration of all things pro wrestling, encompassing the good, the bad, and even the ugly of the wrestling business. For fans of the craft, this is a game created by a passionate wrestling fan (literal emphasis on the singular here) for anyone who has ever been enamored by the larger than life make-believe that is sports entertainment. As a video game, it’s a crazy good time on the couch, but at the same time, it’s a bittersweet insight into the price one must pay to pursue wrestling glory. Above all, it is a willing suspension of disbelief unlike anything else in video games or pop culture.
As for my own virtual wrestling career, hopefully, I’ll know when to quit on my own terms.
Wrestling Empire by Mat Dickie (@MDickieDotcom) is currently available on Nintendo Switch and iOS. All images have been taken from my illustrious, albeit largely fictional, wrestling career.
