5 Gaming References You Might Not Know In Wrestling

We have seen it a lot over the last few years but professional wrestling and video games have gone together like Peanut Butter and Jelly. We all have seen the New Day attires, whether it’s dressing as Mortal Kombat characters and plugging Up Up Down Down or Kenny Omega using moves such as V-Trigger, Dr. Wily Bomb or One Winged Angel. 

There have been a lot of other wrestlers that do major video game references that are forgotten remnants of the past and these are some of those that you either went, “Yeah I kind of remember that.” to “Much like your trivia, that has to be total BS.”

Glacier & Mortis (Mortal Kombat)

Starting it off, we have Palword levels of obvious rip off. That being Glacier the Sub-Zero ripoff in WCW. Ominous music, Diamond Dust (Also a video game reference!) falling from the rafters. Glacier would come to the ring and still wrestles to this day if you can believe that. Most people might forget that he had counterparts named Mortis and Wrath being Chris Kanyon and Brian Clark respectively.

Mortis taking on a Skeletal mask, was a little bit Scorpion and a little bit Reptile, while Wrath being just a a dude in a helmet, maybe a loose reference to Shao Khan, but that was never confirmed. Mortal Kombat was hot, WCW was riding high, so they decided to strike a little too close to the gimmick. Things got tweaked a bit after Midway Games threatened a lawsuit, the masks and ominous mystique was done for. Kanyon got rolled into the Jersey Triad with Bam Bam and DDP, Clark going to KroniK with Brian Adams after drifting in the pipeline for WCW until closure and Glacier stayed close, but dialed it back noticeably.

Who better than Mortis doesn’t sound as good as using Kanyon in all honesty.

Cody Rhodes’ Tri-Force Boots (Legend of Zelda)

It’s been well documented for years that Cody Rhodes loves the Zelda franchise. Notably on his interview on Broken Skull saying his favorite game (and weirdly Stone Cold having one too? It felt forced but sure)  of all time is “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”. Early on in his WWE career though, he showed his love and appreciation for the franchise by dawning the Tri Force on the outside of his boots.

Not sure if Nintendo used their Power and said something about it or he used Wisdom for his chest tattoo sized neck tattoo to be more marketable but, for a good amount of years in his live wrestling career, the American Nightmare had the Courage to dawn the Tri-Force for some amount of time.

Dark Order’s Original Name (Super Smash Bros)

Stu Greyson and Evil Uno have always been on a bit more of the nerdier side of things but the Dark Order wasn’t really video game-esque or posed any form of video game reference when first coming to AEW. That being said however, their original tag name probably would have had Nintendo throwing the fastest Cease and Desist known to man.

Uno and Stu were individually known as Player Uno and Player Dos, while collectively being known as the Super Smash Brothers prior to AEW. Their gimmick was straight up just video games to the point the attire had a pause button and when pushed, they would freeze up. A nice little extra to the Super Smash Bros. is that Evil Uno’s finisher is actually called Fatality. Two for one (or Uno) special when it comes to fighting games!

Suicide/Manik (TNA impact!)

We all knew the original Suicide character was the quintessential X-Division daredevil, played by talent such as Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, Kiyoshi, TJ Perkins, Jonathan Gresham and Caleb Konley. What is probably less known is the character was completely made up. Well most are in professional wrestling but let me explain.

Total Nonstop Action created one video game where they had their own character’s career mode named Suicide, trying to become part of the TNA Roster. The character was so iconic in the video games with it being an insane daredevil, doing moves that were not thought of and the powers that be went, “We can make this an on-screen character, right?” One Feast or Fired of Curry Man later and Christopher Daniels dawned a new gimmick under the skeletal mask and red bodysuit.

After the Fallen Angel came back to TV, the current King of TNA dawned it until his on-screen return for Fourtune in 2010, then it followed the timeline referenced earlier. TJP renamed it originally in 2013, but in 2016 and for a few years during the Impact Rebuild that started in 2017, Suicide returned as a separate character from Manik. He’s currently not actively being used, but TNA loves to bust him out every now and then. 

Chris Sabin (Final Fantasy 6)

Ah yes, the real reason why I even wanted to make this listing in the first place. After a friend of mine was asking about how to obtain certain things in Final Fantasy 6 and talking about the 30+ Year joke of “Suplex the Train”, the next thing I was thinking was “Hail Sabin”.

For those uninformed, in Final Fantasy 6, you have a Monk named Sabin who learns abilities by using commands like most 90s fighting games. One of them was just called Suplex where he picks the foe up and drops it back down. It was still the land of 16-Bit, you can only do so much with Pixels.

Fast forward to the mid 2000’s and we have an energetic striker, taking a few years to perfect the Japanese Junior Style and decided that Sabin would be his go to ring name, the same way he was a party member during play throughs of Final Fantasy 3 (on the SNES FF6 was 3, it was the fledgling days of Japanese media dominating subcultures). I know a good majority of us were chanting Hail Sabin during those Ultimate X Matches with Styles, Michael Shane, Petey and Kaz. While he used plenty of suplexes as signature or transition moves, I guess he forgot to bring Holy Waters or Phoenix Downs to really finish trains with suplexes. He needs to horde items better.

There are of course others, but I just thought this would be fun since I haven’t written an article since…umm…August of 2024?! Okay yeah…maybe we change that. If you want to see more Video Game references or nerd culture in the wrestling space, let us know in the comments. Enjoy your favorite things however you like, but Always Use Your Head!