Darth Wiki / Fighting Freaks

Fighting Freaks is a video game concept developed by Guy Cohen (LaptopGuy). It was first conceived in 2006 when Cohen was still a sixth grade student. He "graduated" high school on June 19th, 2014, after staying behind one more year (although he ultimately hung around for two more years afterwards). The series' concept is a fighting game series based upon Cohen's public school system, with an absurdly large character roster, with its storytelling infusing elements from sitcoms, high school dramas, soap operas, political thrillers, and professional wrestling.

The series was supposed to end in 2013 with Guy graduating high school. While Cohen indeed left the franchise afterwards due to public falling out with co-director Tyler Jacobs and a decision to focus full time on his Summit Camp Showdown spin-off series, Jacobs decided he would take over the franchise himself. However, in September of 2013, Cohen unexpectedly announced he would come back to the series. It is widely speculated that his return was an attempt to ensure that the character of Pete Collins, widely seen as a Creator's Pet, was used in a way he approved of for his senior year. After that, however, Cohen left for good and he essentially stopped Jacobs from making any more games. He also prohibited Jacobs from using any more members of the Collins family in future stories.

Tropes present in this series include:

• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: A lot of the characters’ names were little more than random words, like “Kirada”, “Jinkai”, and “Rinkard”. Later installments started to use real names.
• All There in the Manual: After production of the series stagnated after just one game following Guy's sudden departure from the franchise, Tyler Jacobs continued to update people on happenings at the school through non-gaming mediums.
• The Artifact: David Schlossman's "Machine Gun Blues" theme hearkens back to his day as a gangster-like character. This was dropped pretty quickly as he became an intellectual, though the theme stuck.
• Big Bad:
  • The first game has Rigelhart, a He-Man Woman Hater cult leader who was brought to West Orange by two of his disciples and tried to implement misogynistic policies to Edison, kidnapped the school's girls while indocrinating the left-behind boys.
  • In the third game, Ryan DelMarion is the closest there is to one.
  • In the fourth game, it's Mr. Alloggiamento.
  • Jack Henderson in the fifth game.
  • Vance Harding in the sixth game.
  • Guy Cohen himself in the seventh game.
  • John D. Henderson in the final game.
• Breakout Character: The franchise has so many examples.
  • Jack Henderson was a minor character in the original Fighting Freaks, and his gimmick was basically that he was rich boy with an addiction to gambling. When he returned in 2010, the gambling aspect of his character was toned-down, and he was a rich boy who swindled people out of money with phony bets. In that game, he was upgraded to the secondary antagonist and a major rival to Guy. In 2011, he reached the pinnacle of his high school career and became an egomaniacal, rich jerk who turned the school into his own personal utopia. 12 portrayed him as a student rapidly falling from his peak en route to a Heel–Face Turn for '13. Even after most of the Class of 2013 were thrown out of the spotlight in favor of the following class, Jack remained a major character up until his final appearance, and his dad was the final Big Bad in the series.
  • Ryan DelMarion is another perfect example. When it was decided Fighting Freaks 3rd Strike will prominently feature seventh graders in addition to the main eighth-grade class, Ryan was chosen to be the face of the new class and the seventh grade counterpart to Ike Katz. He was absent from 2010 but came back in 2011, where he is the third most prominent character in the game after Guy Cohen and Jack Henderson. He remained relevant even after other members of the Class of 2014 broke out, and eventually had a shocking Face–Heel Turn and became a strict enforcer of the disciplinarian regime of Goliath.
  • David Moran is undoubtably the biggest example of this in the franchise; he literally went from a scrapped character from 3rd Strike to the franchise's eventual protagonist. The "Pegasus" angle from 2011 proved to be his big breakout storyline. '12 marked his ascension to franchise protagonist and marked his first appearance on the game's cover. The last two games did not feature him on the cover (in reference to WWE's rotating cover cast) but he was still the protagonist both times. A recent poll indicated that David is the absolute most popular character in the series' history.
  • How about Pete Collins? Originally, he was merely created as a knock-off of Daniel Bryan, with his role in 2011 being merely a shy and nerdy new student who has not made a name for himself. As the series went on, Pete transformed into an obnoxious student with severe angst problems. This made him enormously popular with the fans, and he became one of the franchise's main characters starting in '13 and once again in '14. He gradually becomes more likable, but still maintains his jerkish qualities and is more of an anti-hero now. That being said, Pete is nowadays seen as somewhat of a Creator's Pet as he is essentially a second Author Avatar of Guy Cohen.
  • The then-ninth graders, who played very minor roles in the final game, have been planned to become this in the unpublished sequels from Tyler Jacobs if the online material n. The Class of 2016 were also poised for bigger things in the future.
• Cast Herd: Ooh boy. The first Fighting Freaks game had the students split between five teams. Then you can divide them between the 7 elementary schools and whether they went to Roosevelt or Liberty; the boys and the girls; the reals and the fakes, and so on. Then, there are many cliques that can transcend team lines, like GJYRJ and JABRA. The Roosevelt games had a two-team split, and the third installment featured both seventh and eight graders. By the time the series went to the high school, we started to see the four grade levels represented.
• Despair Event Horizon: Imagine the horror you would feel if you saw that the man who made your life a living hell during your freshman year was not only not fired from his job, but selected to be interim principal despite barely any qualifications for the job, and enthusiastically embraced by much of the student body. That’s what happened to Guy Cohen after Jimmy Giordano’s Heel–Face Turn.
• Evil Genius: Dr. Harris, the brains behind Rigelhart, and the genius behind an artificial "alpha male" dubbed Azrael. He wanted to give every man in the world a serum of Azrael's DNA to make them stronger and enforce a society of male superiority.
• Evil Teacher: As a science teacher, Dr. Harris already seems like someone who's far tougher than a sixth-grader can handle, and he indeed gets very abusive at times, and yes, is openly sexist. But he's actually a Rigelhart scientist trying to advance the group's androcentric agenda. He experimented on his students, both male and female, in class. He purposefully gave poor marks to female students, to the point where their work had to be regraded by a team of the other five science teachers, and uses his ties to Rigelhart to protect his job.
• Executive Meddling: While Tyler designed most of the new freshmen in 14, Guy forced him to add a brother to Pete Collins among them. In fact, Guy designed almost everything about the character, right down to his name Kenny. The character was created long before production on '14 even began. And once Guy abandoned Fighting Freaks for good after that game, he explicitly stated that Tyler could not continue to use Kenny in future games. Word of Guy says that the Collins family moved to Washington State almost immediately after Pete graduated.
• Expy/No Celebrities Were Harmed: Many of the characters are obvious knock-offs of WWE wrestlers, particularly those in the NXT developmental system. A few of these wrestlers, like Kenneth Cameron, had their expies' names be identical to theirs (although in Cameron's case, the Fighting Freaks character is usually referred to as Ken.)
  • Pete Collins, aside from his obvious influence, is largely influenced by Cartman. They are both huge Jerkasses who don't show any respect to other people.
  • Julian Santana by the last three games was an obvious homage to Alberto Del Rio. A character named Angelo Parisi was initially crafted for the Del Rio part but instead got the Ricardo Rodriguez part.
  • Sigma Delta Rho was a trio of mercenaries clad in police military gear featuring a Seth, a Roman, and someone whose name begins with a D and ends with an N. Sound familiar?
  • Jimmy Giordano was thought of as a hybrid of Chris Jericho and Batista, although Mike Ankara was the more obvious guy in the Jericho role. Jimmy’s interim-principal role is supposed to be an analogue to Triple H in his COO role.
  • Alex Rushton was originally a cocky Heath Slater-esque character created for the knockoff Nexus stable. As Slater fell into a joke role, Alex took over the Dolph Ziggler part as Seth Black, who previously occupied that spot, transitioned into the Seth Rollins part he was initially conceived for. He also added some Cody Rhodes elements in between.
• Freudian Excuse: Rigelhart was once an honorable citizen, but descended into madness after he was rejected by West Point because they wanted to make more room for female students. Dr. Harris was a respected scientist whose reputation was sunk by a discredited research report on gender differences in psychology.
• Gender-Blender Name:
  • Mencia Juarez is a boy, even though his first name is mostly feminine.
  • Leonor Reyes was unintentionally given a female name.
• Gendercide: When Rigelhart shipped the girls to an alternate school in the first game, this was implied to be a final solution. Fortunately, it didn't come close to succeeding.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Rigelhart.
• Hourglass Plot: Guy was originally trying to get Jimmy fired because he was an abusive asshole; unfortunately, his role as his father's caretaker meant that he could not be fired unless his father was as well. Two years later, Jimmy is rehabilitated and accepted by the school body when he is appointed acting principal, due to his his far more relaxed and "hip" school agenda. Guy initially seems supportive, but it turns out he is now consumed by a grudge against him and ultimately gets him demoted back down to being his father's medical assistant. And that doesn't even begin to describe the ageist and ableist propaganda campaign he used to try to get Mr. Giordano medically retired and Jimmy out of a job. Meanwhile, Jimmy (and David Moran) is seen as a school hero.
• The Hero: Ike Katz was the character who initially served as the franchise's protagonist. However, as the franchise started to focus more on Guy Cohen, Ike fell into the background and was gone by 2011. Following Guy's Face–Heel Turn in '12, David Moran took the role.
• I Work Alone: Guy, as of 12 and 13. All of the alliances he's formed since then have only served to fulfill his own personal agenda.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Nobody aside from the the 2013 high school graduates were in the first game. The Class of 2012 and Jimmy Giordano were first seen in 2010, the Class of 2014 was introduced in two phases (the Roosevelt half in Third Strike and the Liberty half in 2011], and a brand new freshman class would be introduced each game from '12 on.
  • Out of the Class of 2014, Ryan DelMarion was pretty much the only major character to debut in Third Strike (although David Moran and Alex Durand have small roles). Most of the other main characters from that graduating class, like Pete Collins, Steve Knight, Alex Rushton, Chase Falcon, and Seth Black were introduced here. Some notable late arrivals among the class include Cesar Antony and Dan Rosenstein in 12 and Ryan Sobel in 13.
• Inspector Javert: Guy still refuses to believe that Jimmy has truly reformed, and this is why he wanted to get rid of him forever.
• Ironic Echo: A real life example. The fictional Guy Cohen went on an angry rant towards Jimmy on how a mentally unstable, violent, and completely unqualified man had no place serving in a role that requires leadership, sound judgment, and likeability. The real Cohen embraced Donald Trump for president (as he had been a fan of the series ever since it began), and many a person threw his quote back at him (although he seems to have pulled back his support of him for 2020).
• Ivy League for Everyone: WOHS's past three valedictorians, Karen Ku (2012), Rene Chalom (2013), and Susannah Crowell (2014; the fictional salutatorian but real-life valedictorian), all went on to Princeton University. David Schlossman, the fictional 2014 valedictorian, is headed to Stanford. This is averted in 2015 and 2016, as their years' respective valedictorians, Isabel Kaspriskie and Brianna Attamante chose to go to MIT and Rutgers instead.
• Joisey: Averted. Its depiction of New Jersey is generally accurate and stereotypes are largely avoided, being seen through a few individual characters rather than with the entire cast.
• Manipulative Bastard: Casino magnate John Henderson had an iron grip on the politics of the school district to ensure he could profit off of it, secretly steering school funds towards his corporation. He also wanted to ensure his son Jack is groomed to be the successor to his company and persecute anyone who would expose his profiteering. Jimmy Giordano, a former tech support guy with severe anger issues, son of a longtime district employee, and boyfriend of the school principal’s daughter, was originally hired to take out Ike Katz, the son of a well-known journalist who was reportedly investigating Henderson. However, Jimmy was preoccupied by grudge he held against Guy Cohen, forcing Henderson to banish the Katz family from the town himself. After Jimmy was forced to leave due to his father’s medical condition, Henderson next focused on uprooting the high school administration and install a loyalist in place. The summer 2010 competition that formed Exodus was specifically concocted by Henderson with the goal of getting the unwitting students to rebel against the administration and causing everyone to turn against one another. He backed the Vance Harding campaign to get Mr. Alloggiamento out of power, but was horrified to see that a reformed Jimmy was picked to replace him instead. He convinced Harding to lead a coup and knew even if he lost Jimmy, he would get Guy to cross the Despair Event Horizion.
• Monster Clown: William Ernest Kane, a.k.a. Willie the Clown, responsible for the road bombing that affected a Yellow Team bus. It was a distraction used to allow Rigelhart to bring out Ike.
• My Real Daddy: Guy Cohen is largely seen as responsible for the creation of the franchise and development of all of the characters introduced within its first five games. In Fighting Freaks '12, Tyler Jacobs assisted Guy with the development of the new freshman class, although upper-class newcomers were still purely Cohen. For the final two games, Tyler took on the leading roles with crafting the next two classes of incoming freshmen (and drafted out the class of 2018 over the 2014-15 year for the online database even as no game was being developed), while Guy continued to work on the upperclassmen while putting the rest of his energy on the Summit Camp Showdown games. Thus, most fans see classes up to 2014 as Cohen's and 2016 onward as Jacobs', while 2015 is seen as leaning towards the former.
  • Two notable exceptions are Mark Moran and Kenny Collins, who are 2016 and 2017 graduates respectively, but are considered Cohen characters as they were conceptualized by him during the Fighting Freaks '12 development period before the rest of their classes. This may be why it's been confirmed the both moved out of West Orange shortly after their brothers graduated in 2014. It should be noted that Guy has explicitly forbid Tyler from using Kenny in the future, though he made no such ban on Mark.
• Myth Arc: The middle school games were self-contained stories that averted this trope. The high school games, however, took on a more serial format and later established a myth arc about Corrupt Corporate Executive John Henderson and how he pulled the strings of the high school in order to ensure more money for his company and groom his son Jack to be his heir. In fact, much of the first three games’ plots are revealed to be more relevant to the larger arc than beforehand.
• Named After Somebody Famous:
  • Keith Dulles has a last name likely taken from that of former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and is in fact a distant relative of him.
  • Sam Houston was obviously named after the famed leader of the Texas Revolution.
  • Mencia Juarez has his first name taken from Carlos Mencia and his last from Benito Juarez.
  • Karl Nasser's last name is likely a reference to former Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser.
  • Ben Tillman, antagonist of the planned 2017 game, is a reference to white supremacist South Carolina politician "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman. Turns out it's not his real name, and he indeed named himself after the other one.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Pete Collins was designed as an analogue to Daniel Bryan in the real world, having a similar personality in his first appearance to Bryan when he first arrived to WWE in 2010. His evolution into an arrogant jerk paralleled Bryan's in real life. Unlike Bryan, though, he never really snapped back to his original personality, probably because it was too bland.
  • Barry Atrium was introduced as a fat Husky Harris lookalike and slowly evolved into a Bray Wyatt-like character much like his real life inspiration.
  • Alex Rushton was based on Heath Slater at first, but his character evolved into a more Shawn Michaels/Jeff Jarrett type; certainly someone far more serious than Slater. Though essentially, he is a knock-off of Axl Rose.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Guy Cohen (the real person) has credited the franchise's success to this. The first game alone, after all, was a T-rated fighting game taking place at a real-life middle school and a roster consisting of the school's actual students, alongside a roster of 100 or so original students and several other characters, that seemed too big for any company to handle; plot literally involving mass kidnappings and terrorist groups, the music was often considered highly inappropriate, and the game was literally created by an eleven-year old. The outrage from politicians and families didn't matter, as it proved to be a smash hit with kids, teenagers, and even young adults across the planet.
• No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: Guy goes from being the school hero to a widely despised villain due to his lasting grudge towards Jimmy.
• One-Mario Limit:
  • Any other Rigelharts out there? No? Moving on.
  • Kirada. It's practically a Guy Cohen trademark.
  • DelMarion isn't a real last name, but one that Guy made up that sounds Italian. So naturally, Ryan and Randy are the only known DelMarions in either the real or fictional world.
  • In less than three years, "Rushton" has become inextricably tied to Alex.
  • Eisenstein, Reichman, Ziegel, Rossetti, Milling, Hoeft, Hyer, Kistler, Scism, Sova, and so on. The class of 2016 has done a good job in taking ownership of their last names. Tyler was looking into some really unique last names to create the new non-sibling freshmen for 2013.
  • DelVecchio and Diamantopoulos, both very long, winding, and uncommon last names, chosen because they sound cool. Danny and Niko are owners of the names now. DelVecchio was actually crafted for Danny's older brother, but he was too minor a character for OML to go into effect with him. Danny and Niko are anything but minor characters, however.
• One-Steve Limit: Mostly averted, being a public school and all, although there are a few examples that still stand out.
  • The only rule about creating characters is that there will never be another "Guy" or another "Cohen" (unless it is for a fictional member of Guy's family, although none exist yet)
  • Hayden isn't particularly common around West Orange, but "Haydn" is a one-and-done name exclusive to Haydn Moore.
  • Most Alexandras in the franchise go by either Alex, Allie/Ali, or Lexi as their nickname (unlike in Summit Camp Showdown where Lexis reign supreme), but "Zange" is a unique nickname solely associated with Alexandra Aramburu. This may have to do with the fact that one of her best friends is already an "Alex" — Alex Buchanan.
  • Fabiano "Fab" Rossetti certainly has a unique name, and there are no other known Fabianos or Fabs around in the franchise.
  • Dashiell Hardin is the only student named Dashiell to have ever walked the halls of WOHS this decade.
  • There are mostly no examples with full names; however, there have been two students named Kevin Vasquez and two named Sam Klein in the franchise. While the Kevins were in back-to-back graduating classes, the Sams never met. But the most egregious example has to be the two Jordan Lewises as they graduated together.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Raphael Blackwood is not an actual vampire, but he went as one for Halloween and his persona revolves around it.
• Out of Focus: The Class of 2013, aside from Guy and Jack, fell by the wayside in their last two years as the game's focus shifted to the 2014 graduates.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Poor, poor, D.C. Brenner. He's largely seen as ultra-forgettable and boring compared to his other Class of '17 peers, and his brother Mike, who was the show-stealer of the Class of 2015. D.C. is not hated, and indeed, Jackson Pace's acting and his theme music both get heavy praise, but he's widely considered to be a dumbed down version of his brother. And that’s not even getting into the first Brenner introduced in the games: Andrew Brenner of the Class of ‘12, who’s been virtually invisible in the series.
  • Rene LaFleur is this, although not to the same extent as D.C. Unlike his friend, Rene is a far more popular and prominent character than his cousin Andre, and he certainly gets the spotlight better than D.C. does, but he's still a far cry from the superstardom that Jordan, Dash, Danny, and Niko have reached. This may be perhaps because his actor, Benjamin Lasnier, is neither a professional actor nor a native English-speaker (he's French-Danish) like Peyton, Dakota, Gavin, and Dylan are, so his skills aren't quite up there. He improves as the series goes on, though.
  • Ryan Hwang is well-liked by most fans, but he’s never had the popularity of his older brother Darren.
• Parody Displacement:
  • Anyone remember the wrestler who Chase Falcon was based on? Lucky Cannon vanished from the wrestling scene very quickly, leaving Chase to absorb elements of other wrestlers, such as Zack Ryder. Chase's origins have become all but a footnote in Fighting Freaks history.
  • Several names of the Class of 2015 were based on very obscure wrestlers who worked for Ohio Valley Wrestling, long past its heyday as a WWE developmental territory. This means that not many people have heard of Randy Terrez, Jimbo Onno, or Rudy Switchblade; compared to those who know of Randy Torre, Jimmy Ono, and Rudy Manna. The OVW inspiration become the Class of 2015’s exclusive gimmick so it was not carried on to future classes outside of siblings.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Rigelhart is obviously one, as he is a "meninist" who believed that men and boys have lost their "superior" status over time due to feminism and wants to reverse that.
  • Guy's smear campaign against an old man in a wheelchair definitely qualifies him.
  • Principal Harding is a highly authoritarian principal who has very restrictive policies put in place. Turns out he's just a puppet for a corrupt billionaire.
  • Ben Tillman, the villain of the 2017 school year arc. He's essentially a neo-Nazi from South Carolina who only moved to New Jersey to "liberate" the town from progressive control; of course, his plans would only work in a high school in a diverse, affluent, and liberal locale. He was even named after a notorious late-19th century white supremacist.
• Psycho Psychologist: Dr. Szycko, Jimmy's personal psychologist.
• Put on a Bus: This was first seen with the Liberty half of the original class in the second and third games and again with 3rd Strike's seventh graders in the fourth installment, but in both cases, The Bus Came Back. Characters don't come back to the series after they graduate from high school.
  • Ike Katz was gone from the franchise starting with 2011, as was his twin sister Lina. Why this happened was still unknown, but it may have been because Logan Lerman chose to leave.
  • Alex Durand appeared with the Class of 2014 in 2011 and '12, before being suddenly axed for the class's last two games. This is especially egregious because his older brother Mike, who was a senior during '13, was still there. Word of God says that Alex transferred to a private school afterwards.
  • Jimmy Giordano was introduced in 2010 as the new main nemesis of Guy Cohen. He was absent from 2011 before making his comeback and full Heel–Face Turn in '12 only to disappear once again for '13 and has not been seen since.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: At this point, West Orange, New Jersey is more known as the setting of these video games than even as the longtime hometown of Thomas Edison.
• Recycled Soundtrack: Tends to do so a lot, especially in regards to WWE events.
  • "Headstrong" by Trapt went from a Bad Blood theme to that for series staple Mike Durand.
  • "Powertrip" by Monster Magnet was used as a theme for No Way Out in 2007 before tech wiz Jake Jonalan used it in the first game.
  • David Moran's theme, "Rise Today" by Alter Bridge, was originally used for WWE's 2007 Unforgiven pay-per-view.
  • The Veer Union's "Seasons" was used for Backlash in 2009. Two years later, Haydn Moore debuted in the series with the theme (due to his gimmick being someone who can purportedly control the weather).
  • "Get Thru This" by Art of Dying was the theme for the 2009 Survivor Series and was used as bumper music on WWE NXT. A re-recorded version was later used for Warren Payne (a character based on former WWE developmental wrestler Calvin Raines).
  • The 2011 Royal Rumble used "Living in a Dream" by Finger Eleven, and had Daniel Bryan as its first entrant. Bryan expy Pete Collins has used it as a theme since then. Of not, the decision to make that his theme song came long before the Rumble.
  • "Justice", the theme song for the 2011 Extreme Rules, was used by Karl Nasser in Fighting Freaks.
  • "Dark Horses" by Switchfoot was used for the 2012 Royal Rumble before Ray Xenon used it as his theme starting from that year's game, due to series tradition of siblings having the same artist do their themes (his older brother Justin used "Meant to Live").
  • Travis Taylor's theme was the theme of the 2012 Over the Limit pay-per-view.
  • Inverted with "Enemies" by Shinedown, which was used as Shane Milling's theme song long before it ever became used as a theme for WWE Raw.
  • Also with "The Crazy Ones". It was already the theme for Richard Earle before it was used for Elimination Chamber in 2013.
  • Played straight with "Never Never" by Korn, the theme for TLC 2013 and John Dayner starting in '14.
  • Subverted by "Jungle" by X Ambassadors (Lonnie Jungmann), "Born This Way" by Thousand Foot Krutch (Jason Wildman), "Edge of a Revolution" by Nickelback (Austin Colson), "Coming for You" by the Offspring (Marco Bandera), "Throne" by Bring Me the Horizon (Greg Adkins), "Cut the Cord" by Shinedown (Alex Wolfe), "Could Have Been Me" by the Struts (Zeke Robert), "We Don't Have to Dance" by Andy Black, "Stronger" by Through Fire (Vittorio Montalbano), "Bulletproof" by Young Guns (Connor Donaldson), "Ready for War" by Adelitas Way (Dylan Rieser), "Monster" by Starset (Jared Rzezowski), "Loud" by Motionless in White (Max Skelton), "Highway" by Bleeker (Robert Fischer), and "King is Born" by Aloe Blacc (Shane Stryker). All WWE event themes that intended to be theme songs for characters in games that were never made.
  • A non-WWE example. "Don't Be Afraid" by Stereomud, "Thick Skin" by Systematic, "Stick 'em Up" by Quarashi, "The Key to Gramercy Park" by Deadsy, and "Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja" by Lostprophets all appeared in ATV Offroad Fury 2, a game series creator Guy Cohen played when he was younger. "So Far Away" by Crossfade would appear in the third ATV game, but Cohen never played that installment.
  • Burnout Revenge had both "Red Flag" by Billy Talent and "Helicopter" by Bloc Party on its soundtrack. However, the version of "Red Flag" in Burnout was an older version that came out before its parent album, whereas Fighting Freaks uses the album version.
• Riches to Rags: Jack Henderson lost all of his fortune after his father kicked him out of his house. He moves into a local apartment and starts to live a more normal life, and he starts to display a nice side. Jack ultimately regains his money when he takes control of his father’s company after his ouster.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • Only two members of the Class of 2012 got any significant focus in the series: Mike Ankara and David Johnson.
  • By the end of the Class of 2013’s run, Guy Cohen and Jack Henderson were hogging virtually all the spotlight. Sam Houston was still somewhat relevant as he was Jack’s ex-partner, and Damien Preston plays a supporting role in Pete Collins' story, but previously prominent characters like Jason Denver, Raphael Blackwood, Dan Hawthorne, Oscar Leonez, Theo Anchor, and Julian Santana played a heavily reduced role in their final game. Also, Paul Tucson in his sideshow rivalry with Haydn Moore.
  • The Class of 2014 had a lot of major characters, but for the most part their stories were about Ryan DelMarion; David Moran, Chase Falcon, and the “Six Amigos”^note the other four being Nick Alter, Jeff Tyrone, Dennis Gates, and Lee Montgomery; Steve Knight and Alex Rushton; Pete Collins; and Sigma Delta Rho^note Seth Black, Dan Rosenstein, and Roman Wilkerson. Also, Haydn Moore in his side feud with Paul Tucson.
  • The Class of 2015 has heavily revolved around Mike Brenner and his inner circle, such as Jimmy Ono, Rudy Manna, and Andrew Corbin. Mc Nally & Redding, Ben Landon, Cassidy Smuth, and Randy Torre get some minor attention here as well.
  • The Class of 2016 comes in many flavors: Stories about Jake and Ari; stories about Shane and Fab; stories about Frank Ziegel; stories about Michael Weiss; and stories about Trent Starsky. Mark Moran is also somewhat relevant though mostly as a satellite to his older brother.
  • The Class of 2017 is essentially the story of five boys: Jordan Kahn, Dashiell Hardin, Rene LaFleur, Danny DelVecchio, and Niko Diamantopoulos. And later, Ben Tillman.
• Stuck in Their Shadow:
  • Randy DelMarion, Mark Moran, and Kenny Collins, all of whom were younger brothers to 2014 graduates Ryan, David, and Pete, respectively. Each of them were successively introduced with the new freshman class of each game from 12 (Randy) to 14 (Kenny). Unfortunately, none of them ever received much character development other than as satellites to their brothers, and given the franchise ending (in video game form) after '14 none of them have ever appeared in a Fighting Freaks game without their brothers (and Word of God says that the DelMarions were the only ones still living in West Orange by the end of the summer; as the Morans moved to Verona and the Collins family went all the way to Washington State^note While the Morans’ move was an unexpected happening, the Collins’ was specifically ordered by Guy to prevent any future use of Kenny in Tyler’s works).
    • Word of God says Randy, Mark, and Kenny were designed to be the faces of their respective freshman classes, hoping that instant last name recognition will rub off on them. This never happened, and the most prominent members of those classes were characters who either did not have an established sibling in the franchise, or had one who was a very minor character.
  • Seems to be an alternating trend regarding the classes and their middle school alma maters: Roosevelt alumni tend to overshadow their Liberty counterparts in the spotlight for odd-year graduates, and vice versa with even-yeared classes.
• Two First Names:
  • From the Class of '14: Cesar Antony, Calik Austin, Brian Baxter, Ken Cameron, Ben and Hannah Carter, Ron Charles, Matt Dalton, Russell James, Corey Maynard, Lee Montgomery, Ray Morgan, Adam Reuven, Jeff Tyrone, Lucas Walker
  • From the Class of '15: James Brody, Andrew Corbin, Alex Elliott, Anthony Elliott, Gamaliel Jackson, Justin Jordan, Ben Landon, Jim Le Roi, Roland Murphy, Lane Paige, Aidan Scott, Gilbert Taylor, Jamie Thomas, Jason Wayne
  • From the Class of '16: Davey Cameron, Ty Denton, Smith Roy, Travis Taylor
  • From the Class of '17: Lucifer Jackson, Zeke Robert
  • From the Class of '18: Billy Dalton, Eric Grayson, Jake Leopold, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, Tiffany Robert, Preston Scott, Anson Walker, Roy Wallace
• Ultimate Job Security: Jimmy Giordano’s job at WOHS was protected because he was dating the principal’s daughter. Additionally, since his job at school was merely the personal caretaker to his father, he was considered an employee to him rather than the school and could not be ordinarily fired. Guy tried to fire the elder Giordano because of this.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The first game came out back in 2007, and is thus loaded with references to George W. Bush, Paris Hilton, American Idol, MySpace, and even YTMND.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • Principal Harding's public image is very much about keeping the school safe from violence and chaos. Really, it's an authoritarian regime in which there is no fun and rebels are quashed.
  • Mr. Henderson is hardly seen as a saint by the public, but his public image is still far cleaner than the real thing.
• What Could Have Been:
  • When the roster was cut in half for the second and third games, the developers were supposed to do the same regarding the original characters. Instead, they cut about 80% of the old characters due to time constraints and developmental difficulties.
  • Duke London, a Ryback knockoff, was originally an English character whose name was actually Duke. It wasn't for a long while that he became Israeli.
  • Andy Maxxis wasn't always going to be the liberal hipster character he was. At first, he was going to be a smart kid who's really a fraud. This didn't work out because as time went on it just didn't make sense for Andy to be a dolt.
  • David Moran was an idea crafted originally for the third game that was instead used as a bonus character, and he never truly materialized until the fifth.
  • David Schlossman originally had a Jewish gangster personality (hence the "Machine Gun Blues" theme), but this was later dropped in favor of the intellectual that he is now known for being.
  • It took a while to evolve Joey Santos, a Filipino Justin Gabriel expy, into J. Unnikrishnan, the half-Indian and half-Filipino character he is today.
  • Rudy Manna's last name was originally just "Mann", but the A was added at the end to make it more unique.
  • Andrew Corbin's first name was originally going to be Lance, but eventually the developers went with Andrew instead to make it sound more realistic. Lance remains his middle name, though. Around the time Baron Corbin arrived to NXT in late 2012, the developers decided to turn Andrew into the Baron Corbin expy rather than make an entirely new one.
  • It took ages to decide Frank Ziegel's last name. It was originally Ziel, then it shuffled through names like Zielinski and Zielonka before eventually settling on Ziegel.
  • Fab Rossetti was supposed to be the Enzo Amore analogue who would get put together with Big Cass-inspired Cassidy Smith. This never really panned out, as Fab and Enzo were too different for the team to work, and Cassidy was instead paired with Danny Anselmo. Additionally, his theme song was supposed to be "Decay" by Sevendust, but this was later changed to "Thick Skin" by Systematic, Finally, his name was supposed to be "Fabio", but it was changed to avoid confusion with the supermodel.
  • Ari Reichman's last name was original Reichstein, but it was changed to stand out more from "Eisenstein". His theme was originally going to be Adelitas Way's "Alive", but that was instead given to Rob Prante, while Ari got Fall Out Boy's "Light 'Em Up".
  • Dashiell Hardin was supposed to be Scott's younger brother, but instead they became cousins. The development team decided so because Dash's freshman year was only Scott's second year in West Orange, and the former's character just did not work out as someone also new to the district. It was also chosen perhaps because the dynamic would have been too similar to the Scheider and Rosenstein brothers, which also paired an outgoing senior with an incoming freshman.
  • Danny and Niko were just supposed to be another bromance a la Jake & Ari or McNally & Redding. The developers wanted to go deeper so they decided to make them half-brothers. This is revealed in '14 although their background was explored more deeply over time via supplementary media. Speaking of which, Danny was crafted long before Niko and was originally a stand-alone Pauly D knockoff who was tied to the already existing minor character of [=Joey Del Vecchio=.
  • When Tyler took over the franchise upon Guy’s departure, he was rumored to have planned on removing Pete Collins, who was supposed to be entering his senior year at the high school, from the franchise, as he, unlike Guy, hates the character. Guy’s sudden return to the series was rumored to be in reaction to this. Tyler, while still not a fan of Pete, has regretted ever considering this. In fact, he is actually thankful that Guy rushed back to save Pete from the chopping block, and has admitted continuing the story without him would have been disastrous. It was later revealed that in anticipation from this, Guy made sure that Gig Morton, Pete's actor, was contractually obliged to appear in any Fighting Freaks games up to 2014.