Cheat codes
All five codes work the same way: pause during a match and enter the sequence. You'll know one took because Vince McMahon or Jerry Lawler reacts to it out loud.
All five codes
- Freeze Timer: JKJ
- High speed mode: JK
- Immortality: J
- Super Strong Blows: JLK
- Unlimited combos: KJK
How the fights actually work
You need two pins to take a match, and a pin only sticks once the opponent's health bar is empty. Each round is a race to empty that bar before the timer runs out on you; do it twice and the match is yours. Once the bar is gone, any button drops the pin. Clear a whole round without taking a hit and you earn a PERFECT, which is mostly bragging rights, but it means you've stopped mashing and started reading the other guy.
Almost every big move starts from a head hold. Double-tap toward your opponent and press Super Punch, O when you're facing right, to grab them. From there you feed in the slam or piledriver. Without that grab you're mostly trading jabs.
Two meters run the momentum. The Recover bar appears whenever you get knocked down, so mash buttons to climb back up before your opponent lines up a stomp. The Combo meter fills as you land hits, and it carries over between rounds. Lose a round and you still start the next one with it part-charged. When it fills and COMBO flashes, put your opponent in a head hold and tap toward them twice plus any button for the heaviest damage in the game.
One rule catches everyone: a wrestler left alone outside the ring keeps bleeding health until someone follows. Throw a staller out and let the floor do the work, or chase them before it happens to you.
What can your wrestler actually do?
Each of the eight fights with its own set of absurd specials. Here's the one worth learning first for each (Punch is U, Super Punch is O, Kick is J, Super Kick is L).
- Razor Ramon. That arm-blade the intro teased is Charge Razor: hold U for about three seconds and let go for an upward slash. His real finisher, Razor's Edge, comes out of a head hold with O.
- Bret Hart has the Sharpshooter. Stand over a downed opponent and press O to lock it in. Ideal for finishing someone already on the mat.
- The Undertaker gets the Tombstone: L then hammer J. He's rumored to be the only wrestler with a true fatality-style finisher, and the game plays it up.
- Yokozuna's Lift Grab is pure mass. Close in, press O+L together, then any button to slam all 568 pounds down.
- Bam Bam Bigelow throws the Fire Punch. Hold U for three seconds, release, then mash U for a run of flaming fists.
- Lex Luger has the Steel Ram, U. His arm turns to steel and punches straight through your spacing.
- Shawn Michaels flips people with the Frankensteiner, L. Quick, and it sends them across the ring.
- Doink the Clown swings the Happy Hammer: L then mash J to pull a giant mallet out of nowhere.
The comeback the game never explains
Get pinned with a full Combo meter and you're not necessarily done. In the last round, with both wrestlers inside the ring, mash buttons before the count finishes and your wrestler can kick out with a sliver of health left. The game calls it a second wind, and it only fires under those exact conditions, so keep that meter topped up when you're behind late.
That one trick is what saves a losing handicap match, and the WWF Championship road is nothing but handicap matches, ending in the WrestleMania Challenge where every opponent you beat is replaced by another until all eight are down. The Intercontinental title is the gentler climb: four straight singles matches with a handful of handicaps mixed in, and a smarter place to drill the timing first. Practice it online here in a normal match before you gamble the comeback against a three-on-one.