In Defense of Sports Entertainment

I'm not in the pro wrestling target demographic per se, but pro wrestling has been a favorite video game genre for me since the release of THQ's WWF SmackDown! for the PlayStation in 2000. The lure of creating a wrestler in one's own image and using that wrestler to hit other wrestlers with foreign objects is a tough lure to resist. That and the People's Elbow, of course.

The latest installment of THQ's saga, WWE SmackDown! vs RAW 2006, satisfies those same sado-masochistic needs in its own special ways, not the least of which is the fact that yesterday I totally beat the Undertaker in a no-disqualification Buried Alive match. And I did it wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. I mean, my wrestler, a wrestler who looks just like me, was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. I don't have the video capture hardware necessary to prove that (yet....YET!), but have I ever lied to you?

Anyway, this post is intended as a tribute to my younger brother, who helped me to make a humorous video a few years ago, which involved footage of us playing WWF SmackDown! 2 with our own voice talents dubbed over the game's audio. Here's an excerpt from the video:

Me: Time to clean up your act! [hits brother with mop]

Brother: Ouch!