In a series of bizarre photos from 1999,Nintendoapparently hosted a real-life wrestling match featuring Pikachu, Mario, and more. It was said to be an event promoting the very firstSuper Smash Bros, which came out the same year. Now, photos and details of the wrestling match have started making rounds thanks to a wiki site dedicated to archiving lost media.
The 1999Super Smash Broswas a crossover fighting game released on the Nintendo 64, which featured different characters from Nintendo titles. The game got multiple sequels in the following years, with the latest being 2018’sSuper Smash Bros Ultimate, which has over 70 characters in total, includingXenoblade Chronicles 2’s Pyra and Mythra.
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WithSmash Brosbeing a beat ‘em up, it seemed only fitting for Nintendo to organize a live wrestling show featuring mascots ofPikachu, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi, complete with a referee. Official details and photos of the event have not been seen by many people, but fans and archivists behind Lost Media Wiki (LMW) managed to gather information on it. The 1999 Nintendo event was called Slamfest ‘99, a promotional event forSuper Smash Bros,and was held at the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada. The match was said to be 17 minutes long and was livestreamed via Real Player G2, but there seems to be no video clips available online at the moment, apart from YouTube commentary videos tackling the topic. Fortunately, LMW found images taken by Ed Espinoza and uploaded on Zelda 64 Planet.
In LMW’s comment section, some fans seem to be helping in finding more information about Slamfest ‘99, like one user pointing out that KCL Productions made the costumes used in the event. Many of them seem to be focused on finding official footage of the 17-minute-long match.
Although Nintendo has not organized a similar event whereSuper Smash Brosmascots actually wrestle each other, the franchise still has exciting events in the form of competitive esports tournaments. With the resurfacing of Slamfest ‘99 on the internet, the video game company might just consider bringing Slamfest back in some way—perhaps whenever the nextSuper Smash Brosgame will be released, or afuture Nintendo Direct.
For now, players have been enjoyingSuper Smash Bros Ultimatein different ways, from entertaining mods to memescomparing Rihanna’s Super Bowl stage to aSmash Brosarena.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimateis available now for Nintendo Switch.
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