History DarthWiki / FightingFreaks

* ParodyDisplacement:
** 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 Wrestling/ZackRyder. 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.

* WeirdAlEffect:

* OneMarioLimit:

* VillainWithGoodPublicity:

* MythArc: 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 CorruptCorporateExecutive 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.

* GenderBenderName:

** The first game has Rigelhart, a HeManWomanHater cult leader who was brought to West Orange by two of his disciples and tried to implement misogynistic policies to Edison.

* IronicEcho: 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, and many a person threw his quote back at him.

* ManipulativeBastard: 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. 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 DespairEventHorizion.

** 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.

** Subverted by "Jungle" by X Ambassadors, "Born This Way" by Thousand Foot Krutch, "Edge of a Revolution" by Nickelback, "Coming for You" by the Offspring, "Throne" by Bring Me the Horizon, "Cut the Cord" by Shinedown, "Could Have Been Me" by the Struts, "We Don't Have to Dance" by Andy Black, "Stronger" by Through Fire, "Bulletproof" by Young Guns, "Ready for War" by Adelitas Way, "Monster" by Starset, "Loud" by Motionless in White, "Highway" by Bleeker, and "King is Born" by Aloe Blacc. All WWE event themes that intended to be theme songs for characters in games that were never made.

* ExecutiveMeddling: 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. [[WordOfGod Word of Guy]] says that the Collins family moved to Washington State almost immediately after Pete graduated.

** Jimmy Giordano was thought of as a hybrid of Wrestling/ChrisJerico and Wrestling/{{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 Wrestling/TripleH in his COO role.

* ManipulativeBastard: Casino magnate John Henderson had an iron grip on the politics of the school district to ensure he could profit off of it. 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. 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. 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 DespairEventHorizion.

* MythArc: 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 CorruptCorporateExecutive John Henderson and how he pulled the strings of the high school in order to groom his son Jack to be his heir.

** 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 because 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.

* TheArtifact: 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.

** 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. The Class of 2016 were also poised for bigger things in the future.

* MyRealDaddy: 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 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 [[WordOfGod confirmed]] the both [[PutOnABus moved out]] of West Orange shortly after their brothers graduated in 2014.

** Ben Tillman, the villain of the 2017 game draft. He's essentially a neo-Nazi from South Carolina who only moved to New Jersey because 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.

** 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 after '''14'' none of them have ever appeared in a ''Fighting Freaks'' game without their brothers (and WordOfGod 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).

** 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 the plans were that their background will be explored more deeply over time. Indeed the draft for the 2017 game puts heavy focus on their background. Speaking of which, Danny was crafted long before Niko and was originally a stand-alone Pauly D knockoff.

Fighting Freaks is a video game concept developed by [=LaptopGuy=]. It was first conceived in 2006 when [=LaptopGuy=] 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 with an absurdly large character roster, with its storytelling infusing elements from sitcoms, high school dramas, soap operas, political thrillers, and professional wrestling.

* {{Expy}}: 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.)

* IWorkAlone: Guy, as of ''12'' and ''13''. All of the alliances he's formed since then have only served to fulfill his own personal agenda.
* IconicSequelCharacter: Nobody aside from the the 2013 high school graduates were in the first game. The Class of 2012 were first seen in ''2010'', the Class of 2014 was introduced in two phases, and a brand new freshman class would be introduced each game from '''12'' on.

** By the end of the Class of 2013’s run, Guy Cohen and Jack Henderson were hogging virtually all the spotlight. 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”; Steve Knight and Alex Rushton; Pete Collins; and Sigma Delta Rho. 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. McNally & Redding, Ben Landon, Cassidy Smuth, and Randy Torre get some minor attentions
** 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.

** 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 verse with even-yeared classes.

** 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.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen
** 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.
** 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 it just didn't make sense for Andy to be a dolt.
** David Schlossman originally had a Jewish gangster personality, but this was later dropped in favor of the intellectual that he is now known for being.
** 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.
** 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 the plans were that their background will be explored more deeply over time. Indeed the draft for the 2017 game puts heavy focus on their background.

** In the fourth game, it's [[Spoiler: Mr. Alloggiamento]].

** 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.

** Mr. Henderson is hardly seen as a saint by the public, but his public image is still ''far'' cleaner than the real thing.

Fighting Freaks is a video game concept developed by [=LaptopGuy=]. It was first conceived in 2006 when [=LaptopGuy=] was still a sixth grade student. He just graduated high school on June 19th, 2014, after staying behind one more year. The series' concept is a fighting game series with an absurdly large character roster, with its storytelling infusing elements from sitcoms, high school dramas, soap operas, political thrillers, and professional wrestling.

** How about Pete Collins? Originally, he was merely created as a knock-off of [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson 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.

** "Pete Collins" was a fictional person people sent new acquaintances to do "errands" for in the early 1900s.

** Principal Harding's public image is very much about keeping the school safe from violence and chaos. Really, it's an authoritarian regime.