Okay let me be really direct here and just say that what I'm about to write is probably going to be very different to anything else I have written on this website so far. First off, I do not see this as a video game, I never "played" it like one. Don't ask me how the story mode is, or how it controls, because I just DON'T know!

I do not see this as a "video game" and more as a tool to create narrative and really magical moments of pro wrestling.
When I'm not writing for my tabletop games, I am writing show cards and storylines for wrestlers in my very own wrestling promotion!

This is what this "review" is going to be mainly: just me talking about the creation of the wrestling promotion GPW (Global Psychosis Wrestling).

I was initially inspired to do this when one of my best friends shared with me their own wrestling show and I was then curious with how far I can go with this "game's" engine and complexity of wrestler creation. My first wrestler was just this blue entity with a ripped muscular figure with a monkey mask/head that mainly just wrestles similarly to Brock Lesnar. I stared at the blank name bar and my only thought at the moment was to just name it "Trauma." So I did.

After that I made more and more wrestlers. Some are very strange and "supernatural" or just straight up just non human (like Trauma.) Or just really violent, cruel, petty, calculated fighters. I will list a few of them or a lot, mostly out of indulgence.

In the strange/supernatural category you got wrestlers like

Fungai Marshall: Ultra rich sovereign from South Africa that wishes to hold power over GPW with an iron fist with the use of gross submissions and the special talent of controlling peoples nerves. He goes nowhere without his "mysterious" unlimited source of income and puts funding into a lab that attempts to create the "perfect wrestler." The attempt creates the first ever homunculus wrestler named GUNK0.

GUNK0: As mentioned above is the first ever homunculus wrestler. The final stage of physical development had some interesting results, like their height being only 4 '11 because their legs lack development in comparison to the rest of their physique. They still weigh a ton and specialize in raw strength and have a death grip from having crustacean claws. (Yes literal crab claws.) Their moves contain a lot of slams, chokes, and suplexes. Their finisher is called "Hellzone Grenade." (lol)

Hazgard Ruffalo: A literal alien from a different world. They have four arms and all they do is really gross looking suplexes and moonsaults.

So not as crazy as those three but still strange you got wrestlers like - Dr. Psycho Lover who's a giant clown. She's the strongest wrestler in GPW. She's very similar to a Zangief type character, power bombs, piledrivers, brain busters, etc. While doing a lot of hijinks, like fainting punches and grapples and spits silly gas mist. She has my favorite finisher name "Waste Matter Death Spiral."

Okay hold on this one is really strange but it would be a disservice to myself if I didn't mention him.
Leisure Suit Leszek is an 80ish year old polish cyborg that's obsessed with disco music. He may or may not wrestle exactly how you would imagine him to wrestle.

Anyways you should have a clear picture with how ridiculous I let myself be with this promotion. Not every wrestler is like this but I would like to say I try to have every one of them be eccentric and full of life in some way, with how they look, fight, or their personality.

A lot about GPW is chaotic in nature but I really went out of my way to have that be known with ring designs and stage textures. I fucked it all up. At the time I was really inspired by Cruelty Squad and if you saw it, it would really be obvious. I had a really fun time just fucking around and putting face textures on walls and having all the colors be so abrasive with saturation. While the stage I use for Trauma matches is just a void of black with the ring at the center. I have one stage look like they’re wrestling in a fucked up train station from silent hill. I’ve done a lot to make my game look the way it does.

Allow me to share a favorite storyline of mine that happened during two seasons of GPW.

THE MR. PAIN VS MICKEY ANHEDONIA FEUD.

There's a wrestler in GPW named Mr. Pain. He's the most fragile wrestler as he suffered from a treacherous accident that resulted in him being sensitive to pain and tends to bleed easily. He's covered head to toe in bandages, almost mummy-like, with two red domes for hands as his biological hands were utterly destroyed from the accident. He wrestles passively, as he focuses on distancing himself away from his opponents. Lots of ducking/weaving, you know- boxing shit. He got some submissions to slow down the match, counters frequently. Obviously can't take a hit for shit..

Season 1 mainly covered a tournament called "THE DESPERATE STRUGGLE TOURNAMENT." The winner of said tournament is rewarded a match against Trauma. Win against Trauma and you get yourself the "Catharsis belt." and rule GPW.
Mr. Pain found himself to be in the losers bracket and was in a match against GUNK0. One of them will be eliminated from the tournament. In an attempt to help his own creation advance in the tournament- Fungai Marshall tries to bend the match in GUNK0's favor as he lets loose a new wrestler, a wrestler that is revealed to be the supposed perpetrator to Mr. Pain's suffering. Their name is Mickey Anhedonia and their physical features are a complete mystery! They are a walking void of identity as they are paper white with ambiguous black shapes covering their body, with a pixelated abyss for a head. Mr. Pain has never seen this person before and all he knows is that this person has hurt them before and they will do it again.
Mr. Pain ends up winning the match against GUNK0 and Mickey just barely after throwing Mickey out of the ring then putting GUNK0 into a roll up.

The Feud continues throughout all of Season 2 and it resumes AGGRESSIVELY! Mr. Pain and Mickey are at each other’s throats, Mr. Pain’s fighting style gradually becomes more aggressive and excursion is really on display here. Mickey’s nasty submissions are revealed throughout this season as well, with his submission finish “Witness Protection” causing plenty of wrestlers in GPW to tap out.

The feud reaches its climax by the last episode of season 2 with a Identity VS Identity match, whoever loses must reveal their true face/real name. Of course this match is in a cage too, to top it all off. This match is where the magic really happens here. I didn’t change anything with their logic, no mods I had influenced this. This match turned into a fucked up endurance test between the two, with the longest submissions and mounted punches I have EVER seen in a match! I was on the edge of my damn seat, watching a simulated wrestling match like it was a real thing being taped. It really looked like Mr. Pain was facing head on into the jaws of pain! It’s moments like these where I really get engrossed in it all, forgetting that these wrestlers are CPUs with just bunch of percent changes in your logic, and how I spent oh so many hours tweaking every single one of them to behave in a way of my liking. It becomes real pro wrestling, a real story between real wrestlers and that’s fucking beautiful. It’s matches like these is why I even do this whole show!

I think that’s all I can really say about my show without just outright showing you it. I can see myself writing more about it in the future. Maybe I’ll journal it. Still don’t really know how that works.. This website is weird, man.