Coliseum Video and Acclaim
Strategy Tips Trading Cards!
I'll admit it - these aren't exactly the pride and joy of my wrestling card collection. In fact, I'd completely forgotten about them until I saw the cards in the same binder as the Hostess Potato Chips WrestleMania Stickers. Still, they're rarities if nothing else...
These cards were given out back in the day when you rented Coliseum Videos from your local BlockBuster, Jumbo Video, Videoflicks or what have you. Sure, they were less collectibles and more thinly-veiled promotional material, but we were kids and wrestling fans, so who the hell cared?
They were used to provide "tips" in the WWF Raw videogame that came out in 1994 for the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Game Gear and Game Boy platforms. The kicker is, the card never actually told you to execute the special moves; it just told you to go out and buy the videotape that provides the secrets.
Put another way, Vince McMahon wasn't satisfied merely getting your videotape rental money; he also wanted you to buy a videogame and rent another video while you were at it.
A quick search online tells me there were only four cards in the series (instead of, I dunno, one for each of the 12 characters in the game) and the set is worth... $20 on the open market?!? Highly unlikely, Gorilla Monsoon might say if (a) he were still alive and (b) felt compelled to comment on my Coliseum Video/Acclaim card collection.
You might be surprised to see Luna Vachon, of all people, as one of the four cards produced. Particularly because, in 1994, the World Wrestling Federation didn't have a women's division. Also she was primarily a manager at the time and not a wrestler. Also there were no other female opponents in the game so it was, like, her against The 123 Kid.
Let's look at the roster, set to the finest MIDI rendering around:
While not as strange a choice as Luna, Yokozuna looked odd in this particular video game. He was a heavyset guy, sure, but at 568 pounds, he still ended up more or less the same size as everyone else in WWF Raw, because Terrible Graphics.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on the game, as it's graphics were a notch above both its NES ancestors WrestleMania and Super WrestleMania (though it wouldn't have been too difficult to top those particular titles, if ya smell what The Dog is cookin').
While still eons away from the currenting renderings that we now enjoy as wrestling video gamers, at least the characters had detail to them, moved around a certain way and kind of looked like the grapplers they were patterned after if you squinted.
Fun fact (and one I DIDN'T learn from these cards, thank you very much): Yokozuna not only did his Banzai splash as a finisher, but he was also capable of doing a shooting-star press type maneuever which probably would have killed both Yoko and his opponent in real life. But the whole game featured cartoony/physically impossible finishers, so it wasn't just Yokozuna.
Doink not only wraps up this mini-collection, but he's also the third dead wrestler in a row to prominent enough in 1994 to have a trading card named after him. Sigh.
I'm seriously hoping I don't give Nancy Grace any ideas here, but I can picture her saying on her next show "75 percent of the wrestlers featured in the Coliseum Home Video/Acclaim Strategy Tips series are dead; does that not indicate there is a problem in the industry?". And after hearing that, I might be declined to agree with her.
Anyways.... Doink.... yes, he was one of the characters in WWF Raw and as pictured to the right, his finisher involved curling his opponent into a ball, tossing them in the air and kicking them clear out of the ring, kind of like one might do to a soccer ball. It would be an awesome finisher for The Great Khali today (assuming Khali even has use for a finisher anymore), but it just looked out of place for The Doinkster.
Side note: by the time this game was produced, he was no longer Evil Doink, which would have been the whole POINT in wanting a clown character in your video game. AM I RIGHT, PEOPLE?
You probably won't see the Strategy Tips cards in many card pricing guides, but tell me you actually have these cards in your possession and I will call you a big fat liar. They're worth 20 bucks, okay?!?
Related Posts: Classic WWF Trading Cards, WCW's Stomp Collection