On January 16, professional wrestling company Impact Wrestling hosted its second-ever Hard to Kill pay-per-view event. Perhaps the most notable match at the Hard to Kill pay-per-view was the crossover with All Elite Wrestling that sawAEW World Champion Kenny Omegapin Impact World Champion Rich Swann in the main event. However, Hard to Kill also featured the latest match in the long-running rivalry between Eddie Edwards and Sami Callihan, with the two fighting in a Barbed Wire Massacre match.
As its name implies, a Barbed Wire Massacre match primarily revolves around wrestlers attacking each other with barbed wire. At one point in the match, this included aNintendo 64 controllerwrapped in barbed wire, which Callihan whipped into Edwards' back. Callihan would also hit Edwards with a devastating piledriver through a barbed wire board, but even that didn’t help him pick up the victory. After nearly 20 minutes of action, Edwards finally managed to win the match by laying Callihan out with the Emerald Flowsion into a barbed wire steel chair.
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Nowadays, many professional wrestlers grew up playing video games, which is why games have become more integrated into the product. Sometimes video games are made part of storylines, and other times video game accessories are used as weapons, as was the case with this match. Another example of this was at AEW Fyter Fest in 2019 when CEO fighting game tournament boss Alex Jebailey wasstrangled with a GameCube controller by Michael Nakazawa.
While wrestlers have occasionally used video game accessories and other hardware as weapons, most of the time games are referenced through entrance attire. There have been countless instances of wrestlers dressing in video game inspired gear, with recent examples including former WWE star Thea Trinidad (previously known as Zelina Vega) entering the Royal Rumble dressed asMortal Kombat’s Sindel and AEW Women’s World Champion Hikaru Shida dressing ingear inspired byFinal Fantasy 7 Remake’s Tifa.
In rarer cases, wrestlers reference video games through their moves. The aforementioned Kenny Omega utilizes a finishing move called the One-Winged Angel, named afterinfamousFinal Fantasy 7villain Sephiroth, whereas Evil Uno and Stu Grayson of the Dark Order utilize a tag team finisher called Fatality, an obvious reference toMortal Kombat.
In future, wrestling fans can expect video game references to pop up in the product on a more consistent basis, as many of the current in-ring performers grew up playing video games. They can also expect a wider variety of wrestling video games as well, as anAEW video gameis in active development.
