On last night’s AEW Full Gear, wrestlers Austin Creed, Kofi Kingston and Swerve Strickland took on Hangman Page, Brody King and the masked Bandido in a three on three fight. Under Texas death match rules, there were no limits on how the six could punish each other. This traditionally involves furniture, broken glass and various sharp, pointy things. Creed opted for a more unusual foreign object, bringing in Nintendo’s infamous Power Glove and unleashing Street Fighter’s iconic Shoryuken.
“It’s an old school Power Glove,” says the commentators. “To put it on could backfire.”
In a showdown with Brody King, Austin Creed approached the side of the ring to fish something out of a gym bag. Like Excalibur from the lake, Creed lifts up the Nintendo Power Glove, showing it to the excited Arizona crowd. As he affixes the velcro straps, King delivers trash talk and a sucker punch, sending Creed to the ground. As many fighting game players know, seeing your opponent in a crouched position is a warning sign. Creed launches himself up, delivering Ken’s signature “Dragon Punch,” igniting sparks into the air and landing King on a patch of sharp metal.
Creed, Kofi and Strickland beat out their opponents for the AEW World Trios Championship title. On top of the Power Glove, Creed also deployed a video game-y, flame-spewing drum barrel and a barbwired trombone. Despite the recurring goofiness, it was a pretty nasty match. Fans commentating that they weren’t used to seeing Kofi and Creed soaking in this much blood.
Designed by Mattel and sanctioned by Nintendo, the 1989 Power Glove was an illustrious retro gaming accoutrement. Generations before Wiimote waggling, the accessory was designed to bring nascent motion control to the NES. It only had two games designed around it, Super Glove Ball and Bad Street Brawler, but could use codes to adjust to more popular games like Castlevania, Metroid and Donkey Kong. It could also play the NES’ Nightmare on Elm Street, just like Freddy in The Final Nightmare. But it’s more famed, big screen moment was in The Wizard, where the bad boy game mastering rival describes it to Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis as “So bad.” Which was meant to be a compliment. Somehow.
Creed is no stranger to video game theatrics. Back in his WWE era, alongside Kingston and Big E as The New Day, the trio were known to wear their hearts on the sleeve, donning outfits inspired by Yoshitaka Amano’s Final Fantasy art and Dragon Ball Z. Since those days the wrestling crowd and video game die-hards have only further eclipsed, with the recent Street Fighter film featuring numerous ring stars such as Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns and Hirooki Goto.
