Wrestling game code-trading got players into fashion

Modern character creators are stunning feats of game technology and design, letting players build nearly anyone — or anything — they can imagine. For years, wrestling games led in this respect. The wrestling creation tools were available years before other genres adopted them, and they spawned passionate communities that united over their love for the sport. In addition to fashion, they learned valuable lessons from the uniqueness of the wrestling business.

Pro wrestling is unlike other sports in that it has not been united by a single organization. Because of this, a single game hasn’t ever been able to feature every famous wrestler, as big names have had their rights tied up in different places. As a solution, some games include pieces of clothing inspired by wrestlers in other brands as part of their character creation features, so that players can put together outfits themselves.

This use of these parts was discussed in a court case when The Ultimate Warrior sued THQ in 2005, arguing that featuring the elements needed to create him in its games — especially his signature facepaint — was trademark infringement. THQ claimed that the components were generic, and no one would assume their presence meant that the game is officially associated with Ultimate Warrior. The two parties reached an out-of-court settlement.

In the late 1990s, wrestling fans began to share guides on sites like GameFAQs explaining how they could make wrestlers using lookalike parts. Starting in the late ’90s, wrestling fans flocked to sites like GameFAQs to share guides explaining how to make wrestlers using lookalike parts. Create-A-Wrestler (or code) trading was the name given to this type of trading. A number of guides were created, listing all parts as well as their colors. The options for wrestling games grew, and the focus shifted from clotheslines to clothes.

The CAWs as communities

The advent of wrestling games and their creation modes has influenced the fashion focus in these communities.

Fire Pro Wrestling is the first game series to have introduced a CAW (Cross-Action Wrestling) mode., a set of books that is, apart from a few notable exceptions hasn’t featured licensed real-world wrestlers due to costs and the developers worrying the games would be “too colored” by the licensed grapplers. Instead, the early games shipped with “bootleg” wrestlers and, starting with 1993’s Japan-exclusive Super Famicom game Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3, Final BoutPlayers can edit the game to create custom wrestlers. This first edit mode was very basic, allowing only players to change the color of an existing wrestler’s outfit before saving 12 copies of it on cartridge. Edit mode returned in an expanded form in 1996’s Super Fire Pro Wrestling X PremiumIt allows the player to copy a wrestler that is already built in and to change the appearance and color of some of the outfits before saving as many as 80 parts to the cartridge.

Image: Human Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

Image: Human Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

Most American gamers wouldn’t get to experiment with CAWs until WWF War Zone The following are some examples of how to get started: WCW/nWo revenge Launched 1998 Revenge’s edit mode allowed players to change a wrestler’s name, put them in someone else’s outfit, and recolor it. This was also an example of copyright evasion via the creation mode, since the WCW wrestlers were included alongside Japanese wrestlers whose names and appearances had been altered. WWF War Zone featured an in-depth creation mode that allowed players to create a wrestler from scratch using a massive selection of parts, and this mode was improved further in 1999’s WWF Attitude. Players who looked through these creation modes found many parts inspired by non-WWF wrestlers, including Sting’s iconic facepaint and the mask worn by luchador Rey Mysterio.

The CAW boom coincided exactly with three important events. The first was the internet’s growing accessibility, with household internet access in America rising from 18% in 1997 to 41.5% in 2000. Around this time gaming forums began to become more useful and easier to access. Well-known forums like the GameFAQs forums debuted in 2000. Lastly, this era was also the peak of the “Monday Night Wars,” a period that saw America’s biggest wrestling promotions, WWF and WCW, fighting to become No. This led to many wrestlers switching between both promotions. This all led to perfect conditions for CAW communities to grow and flourish as players desperately wanted to keep their games’ rosters up to date.

The year 2000 saw two further jumps in the number of characters. WWF SmackDown! Learn Your RoleThe PlayStation version featured a detailed creation mode, which allowed the player to customize their clothing by layering it. In 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

These suites have grown in complexity and so has the CAW trading community. As players had more options, they could now create more intricate design, which made guides essential for players that wanted to make specific wrestlers quickly.

These communities — be they centralized ones 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 fostered, an environment that helped users share their love of wrestling and express and explore their creativity.

The forums, which were open to wrestling fans who already were, helped them understand it better. Outside of CAW trading there was a lively discussion about pro-wrestling events, news and games. CAW trading allowed users to learn more about the various styles that wrestlers have. By seeing interesting CAWs, users would get the chance to learn about wrestlers they hadn’t heard of before, including ones who worked for companies they couldn’t watch, giving them a more comprehensive knowledge of and appreciation for the medium.

Image: THQ via Jonathon Greenall

Users would come together in these forums to improve each other’s creations. Users would analyze pictures of wrestlers in order to find parts and techniques to make the best likeness. In addition, many users made posts asking for code or advice to create wrestlers. The community would then jump to their aid, resulting in a growing collective knowledge of how to do CAWs.

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

Image: Acclaim Studios/Acclaim Entertainment via Jonathon Greenall

The CAWs of today

While CAW modes from the ’90s and code trading may seem delightfully quaint by today’s standards, these modes stood out not only for their quality at the time, but also because they allowed fans to experiment with fashion and visual design in a low-pressure environment. Personally, trying to recreate the wrestlers I saw on TV using the games’ often rudimentary tools taught me loads about color, texture, and layering. I learned that an outfit is more than just its parts. Its look and feel can be drastically altered by removing or changing a single component.

Modern wrestling games have CAW mode, but technology advancements has led to the evolution of code trading. Since WWE SmackDown Vs. Raw 2010, In most of the major games, players can create their own graphics or import them from other sources. They can also share these created wrestlers on social media using an integrated content browser. The developers don’t need to add lookalikes because the players are given all of the necessary tools. Due to this, CAW creator communities are active on Reddit as well as sites such CAWS.ws. A whole new generation can experiment with design and style, even if it’s just trading designs instead of codes.