WWE 13 & Why I once called myself a wrestling fanatic

I have not bought a wrestling game since 2005's RAW vs Smackdown 2006, as I no longer really watch wrestling, but I occasionally tune into parts of RAW and Smackdown episodes just to see what is going on in the world of the WWE.

THQ are releasing WWE 13 in time for Christmas and they have announced that there will be an attitude storyline mode and the game will feature an abundance of wrestlers from the Attitude Era, this was the time when I obsessively watched wrestling.  It was a great time for wrestling fans, not only did you have the great feuds in the WWF (now known as WWE since they lost their battle with The World Wildlife Fund), but there was also competition from WCW.  I always remember constantly changing the channel between WWF RAW and WCW Nitro to see what was happening in each show.

One matter I hope that will be in WWE 13 is that concerning WCW Nitro storylines.  If this is not in WWE 13, then I hope that WCW storylines can be implemented into future WWE games.  I do not pretend to know about the political matters, but WWE bought WCW (in 2001, when WCW were suffering both financially and in viewership), so it is possible that a lot of WCW factors can be included in the games.

As I may actually purchase a wrestling game for the first time in around seven years, I thought I would write about when I first became interested in wrestling:

During the period between 1997 and 2006, I was a massive fan of professional wrestling (or "sports entertainment").

It all started one day in October 1997, I arrived home from School and switched on the TV.  I was feeling rather bored whilst switching through each channel thinking to myself, boring, change channel, boring, change channel, boring, change channel and so on.  Then, I switched to one of the sports channels and they were showing highlights of the most recent WWF  Pay Per View event.  I suddenly chuckled a little to myself and thought in a sarcastic tone: "wrestling - that's so fake!"

But, then something strange happened, I suddenly found myself compelled to continue watching.  The match they were showing at the time was the WWF's first ever Hell in a Cell match which, involved an ominous gigantic structure surrounding the ring, only leaving a little passageway at all four sides between the edge of the ring and the actual cell, my thoughts at the time were: "It looked freaking cool."

The match was Shawn Micheals vs The Undertaker, and they put on one hell of a match.  I remember that they fought on top of the gigantic structure, Micheals fell off the side of the cell crashing into the announcers table (and collapsing it in the process) and also there was a part when one of the wrestlers 'inadvertently' knocked one of the cameramen unconscious - "THAT MAN'S GOT A FAMILY, HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN! - the commentator would shout (not the exact quotes, but I recall similar words were yelled).

Then probably my favourite part of the match was near the end, Micheals was down and bleeding from the forehead (just a note - the blood is real, but intentional as the wrestlers use a small razor blade to cut themselves and make it look worse than it is) and just as The Undertaker makes the signal for his finishing move, the lights in the arena go pitch black.  All of a sudden eerie organ music starts to play, then a dim hellish red light surround the arena and out walks a 7 foot tall masked man, dressed in red and black attire and the crowd goes absolutely wild with excitement.

"THAT'S GOTTA BE KANE, THAT'S GOTTA BE KANE," screams the announcer, as red pyro in the background intermittently lights up the arena.  When the giant, or Kane as the commentator suggests, reaches the cell he rips the door open, to imply that he has inhuman strength, knocks an assistant referee unconscious and stares down the fellow 7 foot tall Undertaker.

The Undertaker looks in shock at the man before him as he raises his arms up in the air, whips them back down and, right on cue, blazing red pyro simultaneously explodes out of each corner of the ring, the pyro distracts the Undertaker which allows Kane to perform the Undertaker's own finishing move on him.  At this point Kane leaves the ring and a bloody Micheals slowly crawls to the Undertaker and lays his arm over the Undertaker.  Coincidentally, the referee - whom is also unconscious - slowly regains his capabilities and can see that Micheals arm is covering the Undertaker.  So, the referee crawls to the two wrestlers and starts a slow count, 1 ... , 2 ... , 3 ... SHAWN MICHEALS WINS, despite being half conscious.

Now, of course that was pre - determined and I realised this while watching the match, but as far as I was concerned it was a great spectacle and I had to watch the next show to find out more about the monstrous masked man and find out what would happen next in the story-line and thus, I immediately became a fan of 'sports entertainment.'

It was while watching the Hell in a Cell match when I realised what wrestling had evolved into, it was about athleticism, spectacle, story-lines and characters.  Most people watched, not because they believed that it was entirely real, but because they wanted to enjoy a story driven product with the added the element of athletic showmanship.

The WWF knew people did not really think wrestling was entirely real and the WWF capitalised on that very perception by adding in storylines and characters (who really believes that the Undertaker and Kane possess mythical powers? - not many, I hope).

Vince McMahon introduces the Attitude Era

Currently, wrestling still has some interesting characters such as, CM Punk, Randy Orton, Triple H, Sting and, of course The Undertaker and Kane are still a part of it.  I will continue to check back every so often to see what is going on in the product, but I do hope that one day the wrestling returns to an Attitude Era style.  I do miss the beer drinking audiences that used to fill the arenas with an electrifying atmosphere - yes that is a bad Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson pun.