Nova reflects on being featured in RetroMania Wrestling and the creative ways in which ECW used licensed music for its performers.
Nova is perhaps best known for his time in ECW as a member of the Blue World Order. A parody of the nWo which was white hot in the mid-90s for WCW, Nova portrayed "Hollywood" Nova, a take on Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Alongside "Big Stevie Cool" and "Da Blue Guy," Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie parodying Kevin Nash and Scott Hall respectively, the BWO briefly had a run in WWE in 2005 and the trio was immortalized in the RetroMania Wrestling video game in 2021.
A spiritual successor to 1991's WWF WrestleFest, RetroMania allowed for several independent wrestlers and wrestling legends to be featured in a wrestling video game that featured arcade-style gameplay.
Speaking with Sean Ross Sapp in a recent interview, Nova reflected on appearing in the game and how a friend of his that used to work for WWE and Acclaim also help with the game together.
"A gentleman named Mike—who’s a great guy, by the way—he put the whole game together. He got the whole thing together for us. Mike is great. He put it together. He reached out. We talk about it. A friend of mine, Mike Archer—who used to work in WWE, worked in Acclaim, too—he was the middleman for it. He reached out. We helped put the whole thing together. We could not have been happier to be a part of that game. We’re on the cabinet. We’re showcased in the game. People loved it. I think he’s working on a sequel. I’m pretty sure. I hope that he does. It’s gonna be cool, man. I was flattered to be a part of it," Nova said.
A big part of the presentation of all the acts in Extreme Championship Wrestling was the use of licensed music. Nova says that no royalties were ever paid because of the way that the music was played, in-house over the PA system.
"Because nobody in ECW ever thought that deeply into it. I mean, looking back, I know how we did it. We just played the music over the PA and the house system. So it wasn’t piped through certain channels. That’s how I was told, years later, how we did it. But there was no royalties paid or anything like that ‘cause I think we just piped it in. It’d be the same as if an audience was sitting there and chanting. You don’t capture them through a certain channel. So I think that was kind of the same gimmick, I guess. But that’s why all the stuff on the Network and all that other stuff has been changed over the years, because we didn’t have the rights to use any of that music. But when you’re watching the Sandman enter the ring and it’s not Enter Sandman playing, it doesn’t have the same effect," said Nova.
Regarding his own theme song, Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys, Nova credits ECW sound guy, Randy, for coming up with the idea and says that song helped set the tone for his matches.
"I loved it. My friend Randy, he was the sound guy of ECW, he’s the one who actually came up with that. We were done with B.W.O. and I was on my own and we needed a new song, he came up with Intergalactic. That whole ‘intergalactic planetary,’ people loved it. It started catching on towards the end where when that music would hit and I’d come out, people knew stuff was about to happen. So it was cool. I had a great time in ECW. I loved every minute of being there," he said.
To learn more about how ECW got away with using the music that they did, you can read what Paul Heyman had to say at this link.
Click here to learn more about RetroMania wrestling and the DLC planned for the game.
