Like so many 11-12 year old kids who grew up in Maryland during the mid 1980's, I was a huge wrestling fan. I was mainly a fan of the NWA, because the refined wrestling taste of 12 year old me thought the WWF was too cartoony. I consumed anything I could related to wrestling: magazines, books, television; I was obsessed.
Every Saturday and Sunday I spent hours watching NWA and WWF TV programming and as a preteen, life couldn't get much better than that. My friends and I would imitate the stars of the day and act out our own matches. I remember frequently using the chain link fence of a tennis court or someone's yard as a makeshift cage for a steel cage match. We taught ourselves how to "bump" safely and would put on classic matches for the ones of fans in the neighborhood. We didn't draw well, but we still put on a show.
Ric Flair was my favorite wrestler. His promos were legendary, but what I loved most about Flair was that he made everyone look good. He had no ego about getting the stuffing beat out of him. I especially enjoyed when he'd climb into the ring dressed in a suit, exchange heated words with the main face at the time, insult or slap the babyface, and the babyface beat the living hell out of Flair while also ripping his suit to shreds. Some of my fondest memories are of disheveled Flair screaming at the top of his lungs at the face after getting worked over. Flair made me fall in love with wrestling.
During the mid 80's I was collecting wrestling magazines and in those mags I remember seeing ads for wrestling games like Champions of the Galaxy (which still has an amazing community to this day) and the Superstar Pro Wrestling Game. I thought it would've been cool to get one of those wrestling games (the art for the Champions of the Galaxy ad was amazing and almost convinced me to ask my mom to buy it), but I never really pursued it. I was plenty content with all of the wrestling magazines, figures, and playsets, and the shows on TV.
Then it happened.
I was at a game shop in Baltimore and I saw the "Superstar Pro Wrestling Game - Promoter's Dream Edition" on the shelf. I was beyond excited. I somehow convinced my mom to buy it for me. Thanks mom! I couldn't wait to get home and tear the plastic off of the box. I still remember the smell of the box after ripping the plastic off. Seeing that rulebook, the charts, the dice, the ad for the Rocky game; it was sensory overload for a brief moment. Once I regained my senses, I read through the rulebook and was ready to run my first match. Hogan vs. Flair.
The game came with "ActionCards" for each wrestler that delineated a wrestler's offense, defense, and the moves they could execute. Unfortunately, due to licensing issues, the names of the wrestlers weren't on the ActionCards so I had to figure out which cards were Hogan and Flair.
I don't remember how many times I had to run the match to have Flair win, but Flair won! I spent countless hours playing the Superstar Pro Wrestling Game, starting in elementary school and finally stopping during college. I played it with friends and my cousin, but mostly played it solo. My cousin and I made our own ActionCards for a number of wrestlers (I may post those one day...I think I still have them).
The promotion I created was called the Superstar Wrestling Association and all of the legends in this business made their way through the promotion at some point. This game allowed me to be the booker I'd always wanted to be. It was magical when the dice delivered an awesome wrestling show.
I stopped playing in college as I moved closer and closer to having to be a functional adult. I became focused on getting a job and making money. Playing card and dice games was no longer the draw it used to be.
Fast forward about five years to 2001 and I'm working a job where I have to write Python programs. I was a self-taught programmer so there were huge gaps in my programming knowledge. I was thinking about ways to try and become a better Python programmer. I tossed around a lot of ideas, but then I remembered how much fun I had playing the Superstar Pro Wrestling Game.
Why not make a computer game inspired by the Superstar Pro Wrestling game?
I started asking around on internet newsgroups and forums to see if there was any interest in someone making a game like that. The response was lukewarm at best, but I still decided to move forward with making Pro Wrestling Superstar. The name is definitely an homage...
Building and shipping PWS in 2003 was difficult, but I got a better understanding of Python and some useful project management skills. A lot of the code was (and still is) pretty bad, but overall it was a net positive in terms of learning to be a better programmer. I cringe when I look at some of the PWS code I wrote in the early 2000s, but it also helps me realize how far I've come as a programmer.
I'll talk more in another post about what happened when PWS was released and how folks responded to it, but it's been fun to reflect on how much impact wrestling and the Superstar Pro Wrestling Game had on me.