Love Wrestling

Retro-tastic Time!

by Gabe Foster March 4, 2021

written by Gabe Foster

RETROMANIA WRESTLING

Systems: Steam, Switch, PS4, Xbox One

WWF WrestleFest. This arcade cabinet from 1991 changed the landscape of arcade wrestling video games. This arcade game gave you the opportunity to play tag team and Royal Rumble matches between your friends at your local game store, or the CPU to test your abilities. But, we will save that review for another day.

People have been clamoring for a follow-up to this game, and now 30 years later, we finally have that title. RETROMANIA has been released on Steam, and today we discuss the positives of this retro title, as well as what can be improved and added onto in the future. So let’s dive deep into it to find out if they lived up to their promise and see if this is a game you should buy or pass on.

RetroMania takes that WrestleFest approach of fast, hard-hitting action. It encapsulates that spirit of a pick up and play factor, while also having a gameplay that can be challenging and rewarding. The roster is made up of 16 colorful and unique wrestlers:

Road Warrior Animal
Road Warrior Hawk
Johnny Retro (John Morrison)
Nikita Koloff
Tommy Dreamer
Nick Aldis (w/ NWA World Title)
Colt Cabana
The Blue Meanie (bWo)
Stevie Richards (bWo)
Hollywood Nova (bWo)
Matt Cardona
Brian Myers
Warhorse (RULES ASS)
Austin Idol
Zack Sabre Jr.
Jeff Cobb

Added onto this already stacked roster are DLC characters including: Chris Bey, James Storm and Mr. Hughes. With all of these superstars, what can you do with them? Buckle in.

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Warhorse vs Johnny Retro…in HELL?!

First you have your usual Versus match which includes matches such as:

Singles: 1 vs 1

Triple Threat: 1 vs 1 vs 1

Tag Team: 2 vs 2

3 vs 3

4 vs 4

These many options can be mixed and matched with a steel cage (Golden Era blue bar cage or the more modern silver steel cage), Falls Count Anywhere and Tornado Tag Team matches! Once you have your desired match set up, you can choose from up to 13 arenas! Anywhere from the Hammerstein Ballroom, to the ECW arena, to your local high school gym, they have it all! When you mix these matches with a very diverse roster, it makes for a hard-hitting time! You can play this game in either single player or join up with up to 8 buddies and battle it out amongst each other to see who the REAL champion is.

The next gamemode is the insane, stressful (but FUN) Retro Rumble! This Rumble includes every superstar in the game as you fight your way to become the winner in this exciting Rumble. Participants have time intervals and little animations that appear to let you know who is entering next. This mode is very challenging to survive until the end, but once you do it, it is very rewarding and worth the hard work.

You think you can take on Nick Aldis? You think that you can take the NWA World’s Championship away from him and defend it against whoever steps in your way? Then enter into the 10 Pounds of Gold game mode to prove your worth! This mode can be completed quite quickly once you learn the ropes properly. The animations in between the matches are a nice little throwback to the WrestleFest days to remind you how far you have until your big 2 out of 3 falls match with Nick Aldis. You have an incentive to play this through multiple times to receive a “trophy”, and the best part is that every time you play as a new person, the opponents and venues will change to give you some variety each time.

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Once you go through ALL OF THIS, you have one mission left…the story mode. Honestly this should be played first since it teaches you how to play the game correctly, but the choice is yours. This story mode follows Johnny Retro as he is looking for retribution against the man that injured him and almost ended his career. You take him all around the world with entertaining and exciting stories that are over the top, but still grounded in realism. It mixes their diverse roster in a way where you genuinely care about the story and enjoy the story when it reaches its climactic ending. And once they throw a big announcement at you…there’s a huge cliffhanger that leaves you wanting more. I highly recommend this story mode for the entertainment and cameos.

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GRADE: 8/10 This is a really fun game and I can’t stop playing it. A small team of 8 people were able to deliver in the gameplay department and proves to be a really fun time with friends. The character sprites, arenas and audio are all well done. This game has a lot to offer for it’s first week of availability. There are some features that can maybe be added in, but that is all extra and may happen in due time. I think this would be a great game to revisit in 6-12 months and take a look at the progress that it has made as of yet.

March 4, 2021 0 comments

Artemis Spencer on DEFY Wrestling, Becoming DEFY Champion

by Spencer Love March 3, 2021

written by Spencer Love

Since making his DEFY Wrestling debut in 2018, BC’s Artemis Spencer has become one of the most well-known pro wrestlers on the independent scene. While his work with the Vancouver-based ECCW was more than enough to earn him a reputation as one of the most talented individuals in the Pacific North West, his run with DEFY has truly been remarkable. Not only has he faced and defeated the likes of Schaff, Rey Fenix, MJF, and Christopher Daniels with the promotion, but on December 14, 2018, Spencer defeated Shane Strickland to capture the DEFY World Championship for the first time.

While by no means was Spencer a stranger to winning titles by that point, but even he’s the first to admit that reaching the apex with DEFY meant something special.

“You wrestled for ECCW for pretty well your entire career, [where] DEFY is a bit more of a recent addition to the repertoire for yourself, but you’ve been the heavyweight champion of both promotions,” I noted. “Do they perhaps mean a little bit differently for you? How do they sort of equate for you, or what are the different feelings you have between both of those championship wins?”

Spencer took a second to mull the question.

“I’m kind of a down-to-earth kind of guy,” he began. “I’ve won lots of championships, like in ECCW or around Vancouver. I’ve won lots of belts over the year and I’m just like, I’ve never been, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s just kind of a prop. It’s fun, whatever.'”

“But, when I had that DEFY Championship, I really felt like it meant something,” he beamed. “When I got that, a bunch of doors opened up for me and that’s when I started to believe the belts can kind of mean something. I’ve never been a belt guy, and never been all about the championship, but I can’t deny that that DEFY Championship got a lot of eyes on me from a lot of people. I’d say that DEFY World Championship means a lot to me.”

It was far from the first time a guest has sung the praises of DEFY Wrestling. Though DEFY has just barely scratched the four-year mark of existence, the Seattle-based promotion has earned a reputation for its incredible in-ring action, raucous fan base, and, most importantly, treatment of people involved.

“What is it about DEFY specifically as a promotion?

” I asked him. “You’ve brought it up, Ravenous Randy’s brought it up, [and] anyone I’ve spoken to who’s even worked there fleetingly has brought up just the amount of love that they have for working for DEFY Wrestling.”

“What else is there about DEFY Wrestling that really draws Artemis Spencer and his heart to it?”

AS: “You said love, and love is it,” he espoused. “You can tell like everyone from the top, the promoters [and] booker’s [that] they love wrestling. And the wrestlers, they love wrestling, and the fans love it just as much. It’s just the kind of the perfect mix. Everybody in that building is just on the same page and just want good wrestling.”

“It’s – I don’t want to say magical, but there’s something going on there.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotations.

March 3, 2021 0 comments

Rekindled | 3 Hopes for NWA’s Return

by Zak Ralph March 2, 2021

written by Zak Ralph

Photo Credit: NWA

You might have felt a quiet discomfort over the weekend. You’re not sure what it was, but it was palpable. What you felt, friends, was the collective hearts of NWA fans skipping the proverbial beat. The organization had pulled all video content from their YouTube channel, including all episodes of their flagship program NWA Powerrr.

The pandemic hit all wrestling promotions and it was no different for NWA. Their third season had concluded in January of 2020 and they had yet to go onto record a fourth. They would go on to lose some of their most dynamic stars all going on to find a regular paycheck, and who can blame them?! All the same, the string of departures made their empty YouTube channel look like the nail in the coffin.

But then, NWA fans, we breathed a sigh of relief. FITE would issue a press release announcing that they would be the new home of NWA. Their partnership will manifest with “Back For The Attack” on pay-per-view followed by a new season of Powerrr! It’s good news on paper, and yours truly is rejoicing. In fact I haven’t felt this excited about wrestling in almost a year! But it’s foolish to think that the company doesn’t have an uphill battle ahead of them – fortunately, though, it’s a position they seem at ease with.

With that, I would like to ruminate on a few things I’d like to see from NWA in their latest revival. I won’t be defining a fixed criteria of what they should do – I’m a fan, not a booker – but I would like to share the broadstrokes of my hopes while trusting NWA with the details

Rebuilding their roster

This one’s a given. Since their hiatus began the company would go on to lose a large handful of talent that they were investing heavily into – Ricky Starks, Eli Drake, Colt Cabana, it’s a list I could deep dive into if I was worried about my word-count.

I can only speculate how they will fill the holes in the roster, especially when they’re kicking off their return on pay-per-view, no less, but I believe they will be fortunate if they find talent a fraction as dynamic as those who had left the company.

And that’s not a slight on any free agents. I’m just saying Eddie Kingston left big shoes to fill.

Who would you like to see have a run in NWA? Let us know in the comments.

Rekindle their ROH partnership

Before “the Forbidden Door” became popular in our fandom’s lexicon a relationship between NWA and Ring of Honor had been developing, and it was an intriguing one to watch. Both rosters would launch excursions to the rival company and fans were rewarded with good-if-not-great television. Unfortunately, it did not have the chance to pay off as marquee events were inevitably canceled.

If a partnership between ROH can continue, then NWA would be wise to embrace that. Not only is their roster depleted of familiar faces, but invasions from the rival promotion evokes nostalgia to those who grew up loving the territory days of professional wrestling – a fanbase that has been very kind to NWA.

A Big Match for Aldis at Back For The Attack

Content Warning: References to people named in Speaking Out.

NWA had spent the third season of programming building up the cross-promotional rivalry between champion Nick Aldis and ROH’s Marty Scurll, with the championship match intended for the Crockett Cup. The match would be cancelled amid COVID-19, and Scurll would become persona non grata after being named in Speaking Out. Further on, NWA Vice President David Lagana would also be named. Lagana would resign from NWA, and ROH would part ways with Scurll.

It’s clear that this environment is thankfully unwelcome behind the scenes of NWA, but now it’s up to them to match their on-screen content to match such policies. I don’t suggest they acknowledge the dropped feud with Scurll, but quietly put as much distance between the names of Aldis/NWA and Scurll/Lagana as possible.

All that being said, Aldis is left high and dry without a major rival going into a pay-per-view. It wouldn’t be uncharacteristic for the champion not to defend on a major NWA event but in this particular case I don’t believe that’s the best course of action. Be it a rekindled rivalry with the likes of Tim Storm, a mystery opponent (so long as whoever it is delivers!

) or something else entirely, we need to be talking about Aldis for all the right reasons. Frankly, he deserves it.

That’s my two cents. How about you? I asked who you’d like to see round out the NWA roster, but what other broad hopes do you have for your favourite throwback promotion? Let me know in the comments or go ahead and at me on Twitter.

March 2, 2021 0 comments