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Back in 1999, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (popularly as E3) would take over the Los Angeles Expo Center in Los Angeles, California. This year’s E3 would see the likes of Final Fantasy VIII, Crash Team Racing and Perfect Dark showcased for attendees to see. While gaming was on the agenda for E3 1999, so was a special wrestling event hosted by Electronic Arts and World Championship Wrestling. The following telling of events was concocted from a GameSpot release, television coverage from the United States and Brazil, and both photos and a recounting from Brad Lynch of Giant Bomb.

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The Hype

Going into the convention, Electronic Arts were already planning to show off their first game with WCW at the time: WCW Mayhem. However, to make things much more interesting at the Electronic Arts booth, it was announced that a special WCW event would be held. The event, dubbed “Loose in Los Angeles” would see “two of the top WCW wrestlers going head-to-head in an intense wrestling match of EA’s new wrestling game, WCW Mayhem.” As originally announced, the event was slated to feature former WCW World Heavyweight Champion: Goldberg. While no other names were given for Loose in Los Angeles, Goldberg would be competing for the “WCW Mayhem Championship Belt.” With both Wrestling and Video Games being at such a hot peak at the time, it seemed like the makings of a hot draw for convention attendees.

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Slideshow Photos

1. Original WCW Mayhem Logo prior to release.
2. WCW ring.
3. Event poster. Reads (Top to Bottom): Politically Incorrect. Morally Reprehensible. and Psychologically Depraved (Pass the Popcorn). WCW Presents Loose in Los Angeles. Thursday May 13th. 12 Noon.
4. WCW Loose in Los Angeles Ad (Credit: WCW WorldWide)

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The Event

On May 13th, 1999, the first day of E3 1999 would finally commence. While the WWF was simply showing off their newest game at the time (WWF Attitude), Loose in Los Angeles would commence. Mean Gene Okerlund came out to greet the crowd. Okerlund would make the announcement that Goldberg would not be able to compete on the show due to an “injury.” To drive this point home, footage of Bret Hart attacking Goldberg with a Steel Chair at Slamboree just days before was shown on the big screen. Amid all this comes Diamond Dallas Page, playing off of the crowd and challenging the fans to a match. With this open challenge comes Sting, descending from the rafters of the Los Angeles Convention Center to accept DDP’s challenge. The referee would hand Sting and Page controllers, and a television would drop from the rafters to start the game. The two would commence to play some WCW Mayhem, giving the live crowd a demo of the company’s hot new game.

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Slideshow Photos

1. Mean Gene Okerlund greeting the crowd.
2. Diamond Dallas Page making his entrance.
3. A very jacked referee showing off the “WCW Mayhem Championship.”
4. Sting and DDP staring down while the television screen lowers from the rafters.
5. Sting gaming.

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Sting would get the better of Page in-game, leading to DDP dropping his controller and attacking Sting. The television setup would rise back into the rafters and an impromptu match between DDP and Sting begin. Diamond Dallas Page would hit a Powerbomb on Sting before turning his attention towards the ref, Clotheslining him out of the ring. Just like in the game, Sting would get the upper hand of the match; getting up and landing a combo of blows and a Clothesline. After hitting two Stinger Splashes and placing Page in the Scorpion Deathlock, Bret Hart would emerge from the crowd with a Steel Chair. Despite the referee trying to step in, Bret would nail Sting with the Chair and cost DDP the match via Disqualification. Bret would continue the attack until security stepped in to clear Page and Hart from the ring. Sting would be handed the WCW Mayhem Championship Belt (a cheap looking replica of the Big Gold) and stare down WCW’s Head of Security: Doug Dillinger to close out the show.

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Slideshow Photos

1. DDP drops Sting with a Powerbomb.
2. Sting locks on the Scorpion Deathlock.
3. Bret Hart runs interference with a Steel Chair.
4. Sting with his WCW Mayhem Championship and Doug Dillinger

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Aftermath

As you could probably gather, this event would have absolutely no bearing on any stories or events on WCW television at the time. Sting wasn’t going to show up on Nitro to chase down Bret Hart with a bat for his sneak attack. And you wouldn’t see DDP coming out on Thunder, calling out Sting and pining for a rematch for the WCW Mayhem Championship. After all, Loose in Los Angeles was only ever meant to be a special presentation event for Electronic Arts to draw in and sell attendees on the company’s big upcoming WCW game. Although in retrospect, you could say that both WCW and the E3 convention as a whole met a similar fate in the end. As we all know, WCW was bought out in 2001, signaling the end for one of the major promotions in Professional Wrestling. And recently, it was announced that E3, once one of the gaming industry’s most anticipated yearly events, would cease operations due to many different factors; with 2019 being the last in-person convention.

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In conclusion, WCW Loose in Los Angeles serves as two things to me. On one hand, it serves as a piece of partially lost wrestling media. Despite the photos provided throughout and the press coverage of the event I sourced for this article, we have no complete tape of the event. Again, at its core this event was a glorified house show only meant to sell a video game. But at the same time there were still cameras rolling to capture that coverage. To think that somewhere in some media archive in either the US or Brazil there is probably footage of this whole event astounds me.

And on the other hand, Loose in Los Angeles also serves as a cool timestamp of the era comes from. In 1999, both gaming and wrestling were both at strong peaks of popularity. Both Sony and Nintendo were riding high and releasing games that are still regarded as classics today. And while the year ultimately marked the beginning of the end for WCW, the company still had some legs to stand on in May of 1999. And with wrestling as a whole being popular at the time, I’m sure a lot of attendees were keen to see some wrestling action from one of the major players, live and free.