10 Unlockable Wrestlers In Wrestling Video Games (Who Weren't Even Human Beings)

Besides important things like gameplay and graphics, pro wrestling video games tend to live or die based on their rosters. For many fans, playing a wrestling games are about simulating the sport as they see it, so they want a given WWEgame to feature all of the characters they currently see on WWE television. That said, there’s always room for unlockables and secret characters.

While some of these unlockable characters are different iterations on known stars or non-wrestlers like commentators, sometimes video games feature some seriously left-field choices, including ones who aren’t technically human. Let’s take a look at 10 of these absurd non-human playable characters, many of which were from one WCW game.

10 Star Fish (WCW/nWo Thunder)

Released in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation — albeit to middling reviews — WCW/nWo Thunder boasted a huge roster with over 60 WCW stars. Beyond that, there are loads of other random playable characters including not only WCW non-wrestlers and the staff that made the video game, but also a section of offbeat characters simply marked “Wacky!” Along with archetypes like “Sailor” and “Astronaut,” this section features a number of non-human characters, including Star Fish, a human-sized starfish that looks a bit like something out of Kaiju Big Battel in the ring.

9 Dummy (WrestleMania 2000)

AKI’s late 1990s/early 2000s wrestling games featured a number of oddball original characters like AKI Man and Dr. Frank, but 1999’s WWE entry, WrestleMania 2000, offered only one weird unlockable character. The game features a Training Mode where players can practice a character's moves on a Crash Test Dummy, and that dummy itself is also unlockable as a character. All it takes is inputting a cheat code via GameShark, going into Edit Mode and cloning a female wrestler.

8 Guerrilla (WCW/nWo Thunder)

While the aforementioned Star Fish certainly set a tone for when it comes to non-human playable characters in WCW/nWo Thunder, a few of them are “reasonable” in the sense that they’re in the neighborhood of the size they’re supposed to be. For proof, look no further than Guerrilla, a playable gorilla.

While it seems random, there’s actually a goofy precedent for a wrestling gorilla. In the 1980s, Dusty Rhodes decided to combat The Russians by introducing a kayfabe gorilla — in reality, a guy in a suit. The only problem is that Dusty’s not in the Thunder game.

7 Head (WWF Attitude)

After portraying several gimmicks that didn’t go anywhere like Leif Cassidy and Avatar in WWE, Al Snow struck gold in ECW by adopting a more unhinged persona who carried around a mannequin head, which he dubbed Head. The innuendo-laden gimmick proved popular once he brought it to Attitude Era WWE, but fans might not be aware that Head itself is a playable character in the game — provided that players win the WWE Championship in Career Mode. It’s a particularly absurd non-human character: Head appears as just hands, feet, and a floating head.

6 Adam (WCW/nWo Thunder)

The “Wacky!” roster selection in WCW/nWo Thunder’s features a couple of bugs to go with the marine life and mammals, and one of the insects worth mentioning is Adam. For one thing, Adam is an ant, making its name an obvious play on the musician Adam Ant — or, for the less-cool, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Atom Ant. Out of all the “Wacky!” wrestlers, this one is particularly “Wacky!” because Adam is so short compared to every other playable character in the game.

5 Ribbie (WWE 2K20)

Fans playing WWE 2K20’s MyCareer Mode end up coming across Ribbie, a mascot for a fictional minor league baseball team called The Memphis Sliders. While he’s technically a guy in a suit, it’s important to keep kayfabe when it comes to mascots, so Ribbie is, in kayfabe, a giant anthropomorphic barbecued rib wearing sunglasses. Thankfully, fans don’t have to jump through too many hoops to unlock him in the game — all they have to do is complete Chapter 9 of MyCareer.

4 Wireframe (WCW/nWo Thunder)

Another part of the “Wacky!” roster in WCW/nWo Thunder includes a number of generic humanoid forms covered in various panels including stained glass and chrome. However, the weirdest and least human of the bunch is Wireframe, which looks like a villain from a ‘90s sci-fi movie that takes place in virtual reality.

The wire-frame model is how 3D objects are made, and so Wireframe the playable wrestler is exactly that: a green wire-frame representing the human form — but of course, not actually human himself.

3 T-800 (WWE 2K16)

For some reason, WWE 2K16 decided to put Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic role of the T-800 from The Terminator at the forefront of all its marketing, including a commercial where Arnold re-enacts the bar scene from Terminator 2. As such, Schwarzenegger’s character of the T-800 — a killer robot in a flesh suit who is most certainly not a human being — is a playable character. On top of that, fans can play as two versions of the T-800: the villainous one from The Terminator and the heroic one from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

2 Claude Rains (WCW/nWo Thunder)

WWF Attitude and WCW/nWo Thunder were not made by the same developer or anything, but both of them have a similar playable character who doesn’t have a torso. While Attitude had the recognizable WWE inanimate object of Head, Thunder had a more baffling character in its “Wacky!” section in Claude Rains. Named after the legendary British actor for some reason, the video game wrestler Claude Rains is a set of hands and feet, a mannequin head with a bowler hat on it, and an otherwise invisible body.

1 Hoof Hearted (WCW/nWo Thunder)

While some have obvious names like “Star Fish,” a couple of the goofy animal-themed “Wacky!” roster members from WCW/nWo Thunder have punny names like “Adam” or “Guerrilla,” but the wildest one in that game is easily Hoof Hearted. Basically, Hoof Hearted is an awkwardly anthropomorphized horse whose name is a soundalike of “who farted.” If that weren’t enough, Hoof Hearted’s character selection screen taunt is simply “No sir, I don’t like it,” the catchphrase of Mr. Horse from Ren & Stimpy.