WWE 2K will have a new challenger, but it won't be for a while. Still, we were able to get some details on the process.
"Retro AG" Anthony Greene was among the first announcements for the Virtual Basemen Wrestling Game. He walked Fightful through the process of becoming a part of the game.
"Randomly—it was Ashton, real cool guy -- he messaged me out of the blue and I was like, “Who is this guy? Why does he have this blue checkmark on his Twitter account?” We just got back and forth talking. I don’t think I’m better than anybody to not respond to someone on Twitter unless you’re, like, a real jerk. So, I’m just back and forthing with him, and he’s telling me he saw me wrestle at Chaotic [Wrestling] and he’s a big fan of mine. He’s reached out to these other people, he wants to produce this wrestling video game, I told him it was cool. He ended up in a text group at one point. It was me, him and Enzo Amore. Which, I was like, “Oh, Enzo’s on board, so this must be pretty legit.”
It took some convincing, but Greene got on board for a meeting with the creator, who said that his passion was going to lead him to the game, instead of it being a giant money making venture.
"Finally I’m like, “Alright, let’s meet up, man.” I met his wife, I met his kid, he’s super cool guy. He showed me his office. He showed me his white board with all the plans. He said, “Look, I’m not trying to make money off this game. This is a passion project for me. I’ve just always loved professional wrestling. I basically got into making video games, like video game software, because I want to make a wrestling game and I wanted to build a name for myself.” Which he did with a game called The Mean Greens, I believe. It’s basically like I’d compare it to Halo, but you’re a little green army man. He asked me if I was interested. I looked through the agreement and everything. It doesn’t stop me from doing anything else in my life or in wrestling or character wise. So, he was so passionate about it, and I’m so passionate about professional wrestling, I felt for him. So, I was all in on the idea. He’s continuing to reach out to new people. I’m seeing all the sculpts he’s making. He had this awesome song made for me. That I don’t think’s been heard at all yet except from him and I and maybe some other people he’s sent it to. I just thought it was very cool, and I think I was the first person to be announced for it. Which is a pretty great feeling, especially when you have Enzo Amore and Matt Sydal, and whoever else is announced for it, that I was the first guy he chose to put out there," Greene said.
Next came getting Greene's player model actually created. As mentioned in the past, Virtual Basement isn't doing traditional face scans, instead opting to hand build the wrestlers. Greene explained to us how that came about.
"So, I sent him photos of my boots. All sides, front and back, sideways, top, bottom, everything they wanted. Same thing with my gear, my jacket, my logo. I had to do head (photos), forward, sideways. Then I did it with hair up and hair down. So, they could get what my shape is, which is round. I was told I have a very nicely shaped head, like good jawline. Did all that. I just sent him some promo photos to get like physique and my golden tan, how I like it to be presented. Other than that, that was really it. That was really it for that stuff," Greene recalled.
Greene then revealed some potential upcoming details, that the game may have customizable rings of different sizes and dimensions!
"When it comes to input, he asked me a few ideas for the name of the game. He had the list on the whiteboard like, “four sided ring,” “six sided ring,” “maybe an eight sided cage to make it like [we could get an] MMA style thing.” It reminded me a lot of Fire Pro [Wrestling] in the sense where he wants you to be able to build your own ring however you want. So, if you want a four sided ring with the New Japan style long pads and you want your apron to be this color, but you want this to be that color. You can enter in your own logos and his idea is to make the game DLC based. Where there’ll only be one game ever produced and he’s just going to continually make the game evolve, no pun intended. But, always add stuff in to make it more unique and make it like no other wrestling game," Greene said.
Unlike LSG, Greene didn't get sent the infamous "nude model," ..... of himself, at least.
"I did not. I was fully geared up. I actually think, oddly enough, I think he sent me a nude one of somebody else. It was not LSG. It was an action figure nude, though, if you know what I mean. Ken doll style," he told us.
You can check out our full interview with Anthony Greene above, follow him on Twitter, and check out his t-shirt store over at Pro Wrestling Tees!
