Thread by @therealsaibot

I thought that Michael Grimm being Johnny Cage’s original name was MKHistory101. But, so many players today weren’t even born when the early games were released...

So, here’s a history lesson on how your favorite nut punching Hollywood action star came to be... (thread)

https://twitter.com/JaxTheKing/status/1375112734988136454

Immediately after the thought of doing a 1v1 fighting game smacked me and Ed Boon in the face, we wanted to tie a license to it. Seemed like the best way to get a project approved by Midway management... (1/13)

Our licensing director, Roger Sharp, had recently presented our department with a slate of possible licenses. One of them was Universal Soldier starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ed and I weren’t interested in Universal Soldier, but we thought maybe it was an inroad to JCVD...(2/13)

As much as I wanted to nerd out on more obscure martial arts movie stars, we knew that in the west there were only 2 viable choices - Steven Segal and JCVD... (3/13)

Roger approached both Segal’s and JCVD’s agents. Segal’s ppl told us to take a hike. But, there was maybe interest from JCVD. So, Ed and I digitized some footage from a few of JCVD’s films and put together a quick demo... (4/13)

While Roger handled talks w JCVD, Ed and I were still busy with our current projects but had started early work on developing MK’s characters and story. This is where Michael Grimm was born... (5/13)

Michael Grimm was meant to be a character played by JCVD. But, we were also amenable to JCVD playing himself. So, his concept was written to be a Hollywood action star... (6/13)

In our structure of character archetypes, Michael Grimm (Johnny Cage) was listed as a ‘sidekick.’ Liu Kang was the ‘hero.’ Would JCVD be cool with playing a sidekick? (7/13)

This was a big deal to me because Liu Kang was inspired by Gordon Liu and Bruce Lee... the Asian martial arts action stars of my childhood. They were my heroes and I wanted us to share that with our players... (8/13)

We saw JCVD’s character as the Han Solo to Liu Kang’s Luke Skywalker, so maybe we could sell it as that? Would we have to switch the two around?

That decision was made for us by JCVD when his agent passed on our proposal. Midway management approved our project anyway... (9/13)

Ed and I thought the character as a Hollywood star would still work in our game. We even kept my little pencil doodle that had the character in JCVD’s Bloodsport attire. I think it was more of an homage to JCVD than a nose thumb. We were still fans... (10/13)

It was at this point that I brought in old friends of mine who were skilled martial artists to play as our characters. Ed and I chose Michael Grimm as the first character to shoot in part to excise the roller coaster vibes we had just been thru trying to land JCVD... (11/13)

We changed the name from Michael Grimm to Johnny Cage later. I don’t remember specifics of how/why we chose that name. We also didn’t develop his story much further until his role in our mail order MK comic. There he became a star wanting to prove he wasn’t a fake...(12/13)

I get asked to tell the JCVD/MK story all the time. Now you all can impress your friends with your deep knowledge of how Johnny Cage came to be. (13/13)