The Friday Night Fights are on their traditional pre-Prize Fight break, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bring you some fightin’, right? The plus side of being a multimedia site is that I can bring in fights from other media. Which brings us to video game wrestling and…Smart Way Out.
I’ve written in the past that I’ve lost interest in modern wrestling. One of the reasons is that the stories had taken over and left the wrestling part behind. Sure I love a good story. This is a site dedicated to examining the art of storytelling, but every format has its own use of storytelling and the stories should compliment and draw people to the wrestling, which on the few wrestling shows I have access to does not happen. Also, I don’t know who to root for because the heroes act like villains and the villains run the company. I catch a match or two now and then because I still like wrestling but I don’t watch it like I used to.
Except for one virtual promotion, Smart Way Out. A regular event by John “Smarticus” (aka “Smarty) Aprigliano, a former reviewers for Channel Awesome’s lamented Blistered Thumbs website, Smart Way Out streams on his Twitch page once a week. I seem to miss the live recordings but his best matches are posted to his YouTube page. This week he did a highlight reel of the whole event instead. This should give you an idea as to how strange some of the fights are. See, he uses (I think this is the right game) WWE 2K 15 (the latest version is 16 so maybe he uses that one), a game that not only allows you to play as top WWE superstars but create your own wrestlers, which leads to unconventional fictional characters, you, your friends, and whatever else you can get the wrestling creator to show off. By letting the computer challenge itself, Smarty plays booker and sometimes even he’s surprised at the winners of matches. Here’s an example of what you get when you tune in to Smart Way Out. There is some swearing but not a lot.
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