AEW Fight Forever takes its name from an iconic crowd chant
Wrestling promotion AEW recently revealed the name of their upcoming video game. Called AEW Fight Forever, the game takes its name from an iconic crowd chant heard in wrestling arenas around the world.
For those unfamiliar with the chant, “Fight Forever” is one of the many infectious chants that wrestling fans (or “smarks” as they’re more commonly known) erupt into to let wrestlers know that they approve of the show they’re putting on in the ring. It was a staple of independent wrestling promotions, such as Ring of Honor, before breaking into mainstream awareness when it was heard during the Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura match at WWE’s NXT Takeover: Dallas pay-per-view event in 2016.
The use of the chant in AEW Fight Forever‘s name brings it back to its indie roots. The AEW was founded by some of the top independent wrestlers in the business with the aim of producing some of the best pro wrestling outside of the more mainstream WWE (though one of those wrestlers, the “American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes, has since gone back to the WWE).
To help the game live up to the chant and all that it implies, AEW Games is also putting some top-tier talent behind it. The game is being developed by none other than Yukes, the Japanese developers who originated the WWE Smackdown and WWE 2k games before the latter went in-house. More importantly, Hideyuki Iwashita, director of classic games WWF No Mercy and Def Jam Vendetta is also involved in its development. In fact, it’s been stated that the game will specifically pull from WWF No Mercy. (Read: Fighting in the time of COVID: how the local fighting game community is facing down the pandemic)
“I’m very excited to have been involved in the new AEW wrestling game,” said Iwashita during AEW Games’ 1.0 special event in November 2020. He then added that AEW Fight Forever would be “a dream wrestling game for fans around the world.”
As for whether or not the game will live up to its lofty promises, gamers and smarks alike will have to wait a few more months to find out. AEW Fight Forever is slated to arrive on home consoles sometime this September. In the meantime, here’s the official video teaser that was released last year.
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