Within the quick aftermath of the information in regards to the THQ/Jakks partnership, Acclaim was clearly the large loser. After a decade of placing out the large brand-name wrestling video video games within the west, they discovered themselves with no license. To make issues worse, the way in which that the timelines of the varied improvement cycles and contracts performed out made it in order that the primary THQ/Jakks WWF title, “WrestleMania 2000,” would come out simply three and a half months after the discharge of Acclaim’s second 3D WWF title, “Perspective.” Within the meantime, although, in the event that they needed to maintain the profitable wrestling part of their enterprise going, they wanted a brand new license. At that time, there was just one possibility left: Paul Heyman’s Excessive Championship Wrestling.
A report within the March 1, 1999 challenge of the Wrestling Observer E-newsletter says that, after EA signed WCW however earlier than the THQ/Jakks deal, ECW had signed with THQ, leading to THQ auctioning off the ECW rights after the Jakks deal made the ECW deal untenable. (A contemporaneous post on the alt.video games.wrestling Usenet dialogue group means that Dave Scherer, then of 1wrestling.com, corroborated Meltzer’s reporting.) Chatting with Wrestling Inc., then-THQ CEO Brian Farrell recalled that there have been positively talks with ECW, however he could not keep in mind how far they went, with a separate supply near the negotiations claiming that THQ secured an possibility on the license from a separate deal ECW made with Kodiak Interactive Software program.
A 2004 federal court ruling in a lawsuit Acclaim filed against members of ECW management, although, citing Acclaim’s criticism, says nothing of an public sale or something involving THQ or Kodiak, simply that Acclaim approached ECW in January 1999. (A supply near the negotiations asserted to Wrestling Inc. that Acclaim did not point out a bidding course of within the lawsuit as a result of the chain of occasions wouldn’t have mirrored effectively on them in court docket.)
