In 1999 Nintendo Had A Real-Life Wrestling Match Starring Mario

Back in 1999, across the time of the discharge of the unique Super Smash Bros. on the N64, Nintendo had an enormous concept. To assist promote the sport they might go to Vegas, arrange a wrestling ring, get a bunch of actors to put on Nintendo character costumes and have them go at it.

So they did simply that. The occasion, referred to as Slamfest ‘99, wasn’t simply carried out in entrance of a stay crowd, it was additionally streamed on-line—in 1999!—after which obtainable to look at for a couple of months afterwards as effectively. You would suppose that may imply that some footage of the stunt has survived, however someway no, it hasn’t, and so for a couple of years now a bunch of “fans and archivists” from the Lost Media Wiki have been scouring the web searching for some.

Here’s how considered one of that crew, bozo_ssb, describes their efforts:

Despite the stay broadcast, and regardless of it being obtainable to be rewatched in RealParticipant for a number of months afterward, no video footage of Slamfest ‘99 is known to survive anywhere on the modern-day internet – it’s fully misplaced. With little proof of the occasion even occurring, it has languished in excessive obscurity for over 20 years, even amongst hardcore Nintendo followers. Since May 2020, a bunch of followers and archivists from the Lost Media Wiki have been actively looking for the misplaced broadcast footage (of which I’m a member).

The dangerous information is that they nonetheless haven’t discovered any. The excellent news is that they’ve now discovered one thing. The LMW crew managed to trace down Ed Espinoza, who was the producer for Slamfest ‘99, and Ed was kind enough to share a bunch of photos he took on the day so that the world could get a fresh look at Mario punching Donkey Kong in the tit.

While no footage has survived, some eyewitness accounts have, which LMW have catalogued here:

Mario and Donkey would start the match. Donkey Kong, being much larger than our favorite plumber, quickly took Mario out. Yoshi came in and got his revenge on the gorilla. Pikachu would come in for the monkey only to be knocked down by Yoshi’s deadly tail. Then, earlier than anybody knew it, Mario went loopy. He worn out Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and his personal teammate, Yoshi. Ultimately, the match would finish in a crash which knocked out everybody leading to a draw. “Everyone’s a winner!” the announcer yelled – Zelda64

Mario and Yoshi have been on one crew, Donkey Kong and Pikachu have been on the opposite. It was fairly humorous to see the life-size mascots bouncing round a wrestling ring. Mario went on a crazed rampage hitting everybody in sight, and as an alternative of Yoshi, Donkey Kong by accident hit himself together with his ‘mallet of doom.’ And in essentially the most heated second, all 4 mascot smashed into one another within the heart of the ring, and all fell to the mat. That’s proper, in true Nintendo trend, it was a draw…and everyone seems to be a winner! – Nintendorks

Even the ref obtained in on the act, biting Pikachu’s ear and declaring that it tasted ‘like chicken’. Mario shocked us together with his low blow antics and Kong knocked himself out together with his personal magic hammer, however all of them wound up better of associates on the finish, the match being declared an honourable draw – N64 Magazine

We’ve shared a couple of of the photographs right here, however right here’s a hyperlink to the entire gallery, which is fascinating not only for the photographs from the bout itself, but additionally for the photographs of the wrestlers warming up out of costume. And enjoyable reality: there’s a superb likelihood this complete stunt was simply an opportunity for Nintendo to get their cash’s value out of these costumes, since they’re the identical ones featured within the traditional “Happy Together” Smash business: