I’ve been playing a LOT of wrestling revolution on my Ouya recently, it reminds me of an old story about an old wrestler trying to teach the craft to a new, younger guy.

The story goes some thing like this:

A young baby-face wrestler approaches an old heel in the locker room to talk about their match that night.  At one point, the young wrestler comments that he would like to get the heel outside of the ring, and would like to come over the top ropes onto the the heel from the ring.

“Why would you want to do that,” the heel asks.  “You could get hurt.”

The young face says, “because it would be a good spot!’

“Yeah,” the heel replies, “for about 3 seconds.  Then what?  Why would you be doing it, and where do you go from there?”  The heel then talks to the face a little longer, and they decide that they’ll do it, but in a way that tells a story.

When the match starts, they circle around each other for a moment, and begin a tie-up.  The face is clearly stronger than the heel, so the face throws the heel into the ropes and sets up to clobber the heel when he comes back.  Instead of coming back, though, the heel grabs the ropes and slides out of the ring.  He then taps one finger to his head while looking at the baby-face to say, “I’m smarter than you.”  The crowd gets frustrated.

After a moment, the heel climbs back up the steps and into the ring, complaining to the referee the whole way in.  They then circle each other, tie-up, and work through a couple of holds and reversals.  When the baby-face throws the heel into the ropes to clobber him again, the heel once again grabs the ropes and slides out of the ring.  This time, the heel turns to the crowd while tapping a finger to his head again.  “That guy’s an idiot,” he gloats.  Now the crowd’s getting annoyed.

Once again, the heel slowly returns to the ring and complains to the referee.  The heel continues to taunt the face until they tie up and start trading holds.  The heel works the face into a headlock, and the face pushes him into the ropes, once again trying to set up his big move.  For the third time, the heel grabs the rope and slides out of the ring.  Now, instead of taunting his opponent, he turns and taunts the whole crowd.  “I’m smarter than all of you,” he sneers.

He then turns to taunt the baby-face, just in time to see the baby-face flying over the top ropes at him.

That’s one thing that’s missing in Wrestling Revolution: the Storytelling.  As it plays right now, it’s basically a fighting game.  I would love to see a wrestling game where the object of the game is to put on a good show, and for the performers to learn how to work and audience.

The maker of the game has a follow-up title, “Booking Revolution.”  I’m going to have to give that a try.

What wrestling games would you recommend?