How wrestling game fans worked together to get the best unlicensed outfits

Modern character creators are amazing feats of game technology and design, allowing players to build almost anything – or anything – they can imagine. And for years, pro wrestling games have been at the forefront of this. Wrestling crafting tools emerged years before they became standard in other genres, spawning passionate communities of fans bound together by a shared love of wrestling. They also learned important fashion lessons along the way, in part due to a unique quirk of the wrestling industry.

Unlike many other sports, pro wrestling has never been united under one umbrella organization. Because of this, a single game has never been able to feature all the famous wrestlers as big name rights are tied up in different places. So as a workaround, games have included garments inspired by wrestlers from other brands in their character creation options, allowing players to create their own outfits.

This use of these parts was discussed in a lawsuit when The Ultimate Warrior sued THQ in 2005, arguing that using the elements necessary to create him in his games – especially his signature face paint – was trademark infringement. THQ argued that the parts were all generic and no consumer would assume that its existence meant the game was officially associated with Ultimate Warrior. Both parties settled out of court.

However, by this point unofficial replications had become common practice. Beginning in the late 1990s, wrestling fans flocked to sites like GameFAQs to share guides explaining how to make wrestlers from lookalike parts. This became known as Create-A-Wrestler trading (or code trading), with a slew of text guides listing the parts and what colors they should be. As the options expanded, wrestling communities began to focus on clothes rather than clotheslines.

How CAWs Became Communities

These communities became fashion-oriented because of how and when wrestling game creation modes came about.

The first wrestling game franchise to introduce a CAW mode was Fire Pro Wrestling, a series that, with few exceptions, has not shown any licensed real wrestlers due to cost and the developers concerned that the games “too coloredby the recognized grapplers. Instead, the early games came with “bootleg” wrestlers and, starting with the Japan-exclusive 1993 Super Famicom game Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3: Final Battle, the series has offered players an editing mode to create their own wrestlers. The first version of this was barebones, which only allowed players to clone an existing wrestler and change their outfit color before storing up to 12 on the cartridge. Edit mode returned in an expanded form in 1996 Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premiumallowing players to clone a built-in wrestler and slightly change the look and color of a few outfit parts before storing up to 80 in the cartridge.

Image: Human Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

Image: Human Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

Most American gamers would only be able to experiment with CAWs WWF war zone And WCW/nWo Revenge launched in 1998. Revenge‘s in edit mode, players could change a wrestler’s name, put him in someone else’s outfit, and recolor it. It was also an early example of copyright evasion through creation modes, as the game featured Japanese wrestlers with altered names and appearances alongside the WCW wrestlers, encouraging players to use the CAW mode to let them get closer to their inspirations corpses. WWF war zone featured an in-depth creation mode that allowed players to create a wrestler from scratch using a huge selection of parts, and this mode was further enhanced in 1999 WWF attitude. Players looking through these creation modes found many parts inspired by non-WWF wrestlers, including Sting’s iconic face paint and the mask worn by luchador Rey Mysterio.

These leaps in the creation of CAW coincided perfectly with three other crucial developments. The first was the growing accessibility of the Internet, with household Internet access increasing in America from 18% in 1997 to 41.5% in 2000. Second, gaming forums became more functional and accessible, with well-known ones launching around this time, including the GameFAQs forums, which debuted in 1999. Finally, this era was also the height of the “Monday Night Wars”, a period that saw America’s biggest wrestling promotions, WWF and WCW, fight to become No. 1, which led to wrestlers often jumping between the two. All this led to perfect conditions for CAW communities to grow and prosper as players desperately wanted to keep their games rosters up to date.

2000 saw two more jumps in character creation. WWF SmackDown! 2: Know your role for PlayStation featured an in-depth creation mode where players could layer clothes, which opened up many new possibilities for customization. the same year, WWF no mercy arrived on N64 with a CAW mode that gave players more parts to work with, including ones inspired by WCW’s Raven and New Japan’s Great Muta.

Image: THQ via Jonathon Greenall

As these suites grew more complex, so did CAW trading communities, as players now had more options and could create more intricate designs, necessitating manuals for players who wanted to quickly create a specific wrestler.

These communities – whether centralized forums like the GameFAQs forums, wrestling-specific sites like CAWS.ws, or the numerous smaller forums that existed on free hosting sites like proboards and ezboards – were special because of the unique social environment they nurtured, a environment that allowed users to share their love of wrestling and express and explore their creativity.

While those who joined these forums were already wrestling fans, the forums helped them appreciate it on a deeper level as there were lively and passionate discussions outside of the CAW trade about the latest pro wrestling news, events and games. The CAW trade also allowed users to appreciate the styles of a wide variety of wrestlers. Seeing CAWs of interest would give users the chance to learn about wrestlers they had never heard of, including those who worked for companies they couldn’t look into, giving them a more extensive knowledge and appreciation of the medium got.

Image: THQ via Jonathon Greenall

These forums had a collaborative atmosphere, with users coming together to help each other improve their creations. Discussions were often full of users analyzing photos of wrestlers to help each other find the parts and tricks needed to create the perfect likeness. In addition, users often posted messages request codes or seeking advice for wrestlers they weren’t sure how to make it with other members coming to the rescue, increasing the community’s collective knowledge base over time, leading to better CAWs.

Because of this, these spaces often focused more on fashion than gameplay, with the actual mechanics of the game often being a rarely mentioned afterthought. Instead, users focused on creating the best and most accurate-looking wrestlers rather than the highest-performing characters, with users often embarking on in-depth projects to recreate a promotion’s entire roster at a specific point in history .

Image: Acclaim Studios/Acclaim Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

CAWs today

While 90s CAW modes and code trading may seem delightfully odd by today’s standards, these modes not only stood out for their quality at the time, but also for allowing fans to experiment with fashion and visual design in an environment with little pressure. . Personally, trying to emulate the wrestlers I saw on TV using the games’ often rudimentary tools taught me a lot about color, texture, and layering. It also taught me that outfits are more than the sum of their parts, with their look and feel changing dramatically if just one element is removed or modified.

CAW modes are commonplace in modern wrestling games, but advances in technology have meant code trading has evolved. Since WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2010, Most major wrestling games allowed players to create or import custom images and share created wrestlers online using a built-in content browser. So developers no longer need to slip in lookalike parts, as they can give players the tools and let them create their own. As a result, there are still vibrant online CAW creation communities on Reddit and sites like CAWS.wsgiving a whole new generation the chance to experiment with fashion and character design, even as they trade designs instead of codes.