Week Five is finished for this WCW ROM hack project.
This week was focused on tag team attires. To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.
Graphic Updates
Finally got back into a good rhythm with attires this week, staying focused on tag teams. I wrapped up work on The Enforcers (Anderson & Zbyszko), The Skyscrapers (Spivey & Callous), The Freebirds (Hayes & Garvin), and the Miracle Violence Connection (Gordy & Williams). A lot of these attires were unique rather than simple palette swaps, which definitely made the week feel more productive.
My favorite part this week was the variety in the Freebirds’ attires. Using Impel trading cards and old YouTube matches for reference, I built a set of black tights with simple white patterns—pretty true to their look. But to support proper color-change options in the ROM, I set their defaults to red and blue instead. Fortunately, the designs still look great no matter what colors you switch to.
I also put together their six-man tag attires with pink and green designs. Unfortunately, fitting their names—like “Michael P.S.”—onto the thighs was too messy with the limited space, so I dropped that idea. I did save the pattern work, though, since I plan to use it when I create Badstreet later on.
My favorite attire to create this week was Garvin’s look from the Freebirds’ breakup era in WCW. I’m not sure why that specific design grabbed me out of all their options, but something about it pulled me in while I was digging through references. I also plan on making a better body shape for people between Medium and Thick such as Garvin, Hayes, Spivey, etc.
And speaking of the Freebirds, I added an alternate Gordy attire featuring his split-trunks star pattern from his Japan and WCCW runs. In the 80s, the gear usually included matching kneepads and boots, but for now I’m keeping things simple to stay consistent with the project’s timeline.
I might go back and redo Dr. Death’s alt singlet. I felt that using VPW2’s E7 singlet was a little too small and mine, based off of Bret Hart’s Revenge singlet shape, might be too big. I’m also still conflicted about including Mark Callous in the project, but I feel he fits this era despite debuting as the Undertaker in 1990.
With this update, I’ve officially passed the halfway mark for the planned attires in this project. To celebrate the milestone, I shared my first public post on the N64WrestlingGames subreddit, which included a video showcasing the 89 attires completed so far. I still enjoy posting updates on my website and YouTube, but I thought it would be nice to give people a look at what’s currently in the works.
I also need to stay away from that subreddit. Sometimes I see people creating wild reenactments, jumping off cages or titantrons, and feel compelled to do the same. I even whipped up a quick Ultimate X match in WWF No Mercy and posted highlight GIFs of Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe. Then I thought about remaking the finish in AEW’s Blood and Guts or a HIAC in WrestleMania 2000, and it quickly became a slippery slope. It’s fun to be curious, but I can’t let it distract me from the WCW project.
Wrap Up
Aside from the brief WWF No Mercy distraction, this week felt more productive than the last. Next week will start with the Midnight Express and Rock & Roll Express attires. My goal is to reach at least Abdullah the Butcher on the roster. We’ll see how it all takes shape.
