Realistic Wrestling Games? Let's Ponder!

So uh, Jeff's a pretty big wrestling fan. Or, rather, he seems to be, cause he knows stuff about wrestling. Kinda a rarity in this day and age. I think that's fair to say. I mean, cmon... wrestling? Who gives a fuck about wrestling these days? More people care about the World Wildlife Fund then about the silly shenanigans of some grown men in spandex touching each other. Anyways, him talking about wrestling in the recent Quick Look about that wrestling game that's like... WCW Extreme Versus NCAA 12k or something... it got me thinking... about realistic wrestling games. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about. That's cool, we'll walk down this path together.

Wrestling's fake. Well, at least the wrestling that's portrayed in these wrestling games. Everyone knows this.

Video games are also fake. However, their fakeness is vastly different from the kind of fakeness in Wrestling. Video games are fake but can present a realism that's not possible in real life entertainment. Thus, wresting video games... they don't have to be fake in the same way as wrestling in real life. Yet, would people want that, or do they want fake realism in their wrestling games?

Just think about it. In real life, wrestlers don't actually punch each other. They pretend to punch each other, while stomping the ground with their foot to make the impact sound. Or they'll slam chairs into each other, but only hitting their meaty back, where they won't inflict any actual injuries to the other person. Instead of actually punching and drawing blood, the other guy simply hides a small razor until the opportune moment and then cuts himself with it. This is the sort of stuff that real fake wrestlers have to do in order to deliver their unique brand of entertainment.

Well, now let's look at video games. Wrestling video games don't have to worry about any of those limitations. They can actually animate wrestlers' ingame models punching each other and making contact, using chairs on any part of their opponent's body, etc. But then, that wouldn't be an authentic wrestling game, would it? It would be much less of a simulation of the "sport." So should the developers strive for realism in simulating the wrestling? Actually model a tiny razor blade in the character model's hands? Do you want to see the ingame player surreptitiously cut himself on the forehead during a match? Should the wrestler models actually be punching air and stomping with their feet in order to simulate an actual punch inside the game? That's a double fakeness, isn't it? It's the fake sport, actually being protrayed in an realism manner, inside a video game, which is fake. That's kinda mind boggling. I don't play any wrestling games, so I dunno how they deal with this in current games. But it's an intriguing concept.