Battle for the Belt: Official WWF board game Review (1999/2000)

I am probably kinda the most NOT a fan of WWF (now WWE/WW) you can find while having enough knowledge to know SOO many things that bother me about them (like really bad storylines, poor acting, poor stuntman work, poor camera work, poor announcers, poor writers who get overridden and not credited etc) but my mother is a fan and all.

So I decided to pick up a cheap copy of the 90s (I think 1999) board game ‘Battle for the Belt: Official World Wrestling Federation Championship Board Game‘. released by Artbox. whoever they are. I was expected a so-so simple game. It looks better then some of games from the 80s aimed at the very young, which were pretty much reskins. I have an okay Raggy Dolls 2-in-1 board game because I love the Raggy Dolls, a UK series of short children’s books turned into animated TV series and in fact, the series is probably more known. But its a very generic board game (technically two cause the board is double sided for the ‘2-in-1’ thing. But this WWF game appeared to be a bit.. different.

Looking at the box we have generic photo art from the time featuring a bunch of people, some I know, some I don’t and some who aren’t even in this game. It lists the contents as ‘1 Six sided Die’… erm.. yes.. that’s what you are leading with? ‘2 Battle Boulders’ OHHH now these are a thing… I’ll come to them later. 8 WWF Super Stars. Well, that’s a lie. They call them Super Stars more then Wrestlers cause it’s not a sport. If it was a sport, there would be a WHOLE different bracket of taxes to pay, but anyway, It’s a lie cause it instead includes 8 figure tokens. They haven’t included their staff in the box ^_^. 28 Cards & 1 Board. yep, that’s all fine. The cards aren’t really much cause.. well.. it’ kinda interesting how the game plays.. in a way. It’s simple, says for 7+ and 2-4 players.. well.. that’s also a lie as it gives rules for up to 8 players and from looking at the rules, I think 2 players might have a bit of a problem. Oh it’s possible but.. a problem.

I did see a review for this which said how confusing and complex the rules were and they had to home brew them alot etc.. the total rules sheet is 1 sheet of A4 folded in half.. The normal full game rules take up about 1 and 3/4 pages. It’s not complex or anything.

The playing pieces are 8 plastic stands with 8 card photo cutouts. Standard. Would have loved Miniatures but generic wrestler figures aren’t hard to come by. Though when I looked closer, It doesn’t come with 8 plastic stands. I was expecting the standard ‘push bit of card between 2 groves’ which damages the card, but wow, the card stock is kinda thin with this and they don’t do that with them. Instead.. erm.. there are 2 plastic stands sides which you clip together with the cutout between. That kinda does mean you don’t wreck the card but.. it’s a weird choice really and it doesn’t really seam to hold the card too well.This also makes a bit more of a number of player issue though. As you have 8 standees but this set I have is complete, and only has 4 bases. So when you play 8 player mode…. how do the other 4 stand up? this is weird… In one way, Its saving money to only have 4 bases and while giving some rules for a 8 player mode, pretty much sell on the 4 player mode.. But then the bases are twice the size I would expect with the whole two part bit. weird. With some help, the Wrestler tokens are:

• Kain (the Third)
• The Undertaker (formally Kain – The Undertaker)
• Mankind (A guy that was meant to have multiple personalities so they could just have a bunch of guys that was just him)
• Edge (my mums favoriate)
• Chyna (Who like alot of WWF ones around here, was given alot of drugs from the management to pump up body mass and is one that has clearly not natural body)
• The Rock (a two-bitter who used his family connections to get some storylines to make him popular, then bugger off to do movies where he can’t really act, only to then go back to the wrestling when there is a new one to promote and say how much he really prefers to wrestle but oh well)
• Stone-Cold Steve Austin (and Friend). A very nasty piece of work who used the gimmick of the six million dollar man (AKA Cyborg, AKA Major Steve Austin) and became popular with the fans and management to allow him to get away with alot.. like beating the hell out of his wife at the time, to which WWF decided, we don’t want her anymore, but lets get him with us. Also the only figure which clearly shows two people. No clue who the other guy is.
• I was told this last one was ‘Debra’, which if it is, is the wife that Steven Austin beat up and WWF then made sure to drop all connections with cause.. why would they want someone that gets beaten up? ¬_¬
  

Now, the bases only come in 4 different colours (black (if that is a colour) Blue, Red and Yellow) because.. it’s kinda for up to 4 players BUT there is option for ‘tag teams’ which means up to 8 players! this game has technically 3 mode.. On it’s 1 A4 sheet which is meant to be confusing and complex.. ehuh..

Now the 28 Cards are cut up into 4 sets. Basically the point of the game is to win the Championship belt! and in order to do that, you need to have external endorsements! When you are popular enough to have 4 brand endorsements, you can go into the centre ring and battle for the belt.. which is.. kinda surprising right.. as it’s not about sports, it’s about ‘Sports-entertainment’ WWF are more about giving the people who bring in the most money, the better chances. wow.. didn’t expect the game to be so on the nose with ‘yeah, this isn’t a sport, its faked’. each of the 4 sets have 7 cards, even though there are only 4 different endorsement types because when you play as tag-teams, you need to get 7 between you, instead of 4. Don’t worry about drawing a endorsement you already have because you just take the card for the space you land on. If you land on ‘soda endorsement’ and get that, you take that card. The cards are mostly just there as token pieces to say what you have. Far enough.. but a bit of a surprise, they have a plastic black card box with there logo on a sticker for them. Nice.

The Board itself is basically a circle with it cut up into spaces, with some axel short-cuts, 4 starting squares around the edge and the centre ring. It also have some paper runners and plastic holders so you have a little diorama thing going on. Bit like things like Space Crusade having the 4 walls cross-section. Fair enough. A normal 6 sided movement die and now lets get to them battle boulders.

They are… Bigger than I expected.. and heavily. They appear to be two huge D-20 dice. each face has the number on it and the name of a move. The idea is when you wrestle, you and your opponent both roll one of the boulders and the player with the higher number wins that round. It a very basic system but adds a bit of flavour with the name of the moves.

Now, how do you play? basically. You roll the D6. Move that many spaces, do what the space tells you unless you land on a space with another wrestler. If that happens, you battle! The loser goes back to their starting square while the winner stays still.

If you land on a endorsement space and you don’t have that endorsement, in order to get that, you get to pick another wrestler (it gives you the tip to pick one that already has that endorsement if you can) and battle them. If you win, you get that endorsement. If the loser already has it, they lose that endorsement and the loser, of course, goes back to their starting square. pretty simple so far.

Then there is the battle for the belt itself. When you have 4 endorsements (doesn’t have to be 4 different ones) you go to the centre ring and get to pick another wrestler who you will battle against. If you win, you win the game! if you lose? you return one of the endorsements and return to your starting square. If the challenger who beat you ALSO has 4 endorsements, they can stay there and now do their own battle for the belt.

very simple. Move by rolling a die, battle by rolling 2 dice. Not much to it.

After reading the rules for this (which they say is the normal 10 minute game mode) I thought and commented to someone that I think it could be better, and a bit longer, if they allowed multiple rounds for the battling. So it’s best of 3, which would be much better in my mind. Then I looked at the long play mode (20 minutes) and that’s what they did. Best 2 out of 3 in matches, though not for the endorsement matches or belt match.

Tag team mode is just the normal game (but now 30 minute play time) but up to 8 players, where each team needs to get 7 endorsements (so 4/3 split) then only one of them needs to head to the ring but… its kinda confusing on if you pick another tag team and it’s kinda you both need to win (so say, Team A player 1 rolls, adds the score from Team A player 2, then Team B player 1 and team B Player 2 add their score together to see which team wins) but it’s fair enough. They also say ‘what happens if your own team mate turns against you midway through the game? no rules for this per say but, yep, I’m fine with that. While you would have a base colour issue I can see that it could happen. Tag Teams could probably work with a odd-number of players too, because that gives an easy way for one to be ganged up on or try to ‘steal’ another player from their team mate. Kinda all depends on the players really.

Visually, I think it doesn’t look too bad. While I would have preferred miniature models of course, This keeps the price down and is fair enough. In fact, what was the price when this came out? Well.. I have no clue. I checked the Argos Catalogue for 1999 and it appears they didn’t sell it. But with the components and the number around… I think £10 -£12.99 is about the right ball park. In fact, I think it might be a bit high but with the licensing and stuff, that is probably about right.

But lets go back for a bit.. Artbox. I have no clue who they are.. all the label says is ‘Artbox: A JPPY Amada Company’ and that logo is pretty damn small and that bottom line very hard for me to read. WWF Logo is very big and clear though.. including a ‘WWF.com Download this’.. download what? the board game? Anyway.. Artbox (trademark).. lets see who they are. First look says.. erm.. a Cheap licensed stationery company.. mm.. doesn’t quite sound right..

A closer look says a Korean ‘lifestyle and stationery company’ which was founded as part of Samsung.. That sounds more right.. While founded in 1984, they spun-off in 1986.. but nope.. not that company.. so much for the trademark eh? I think find out, it didn’t say a JPPY Amada company.. but JPP / Amada.. JPP/Amada Artbox did trading cards… wow.. they did trading cards and yet the quality of the card stock in this is pretty low. Anyway.. They did Trading cards based on comics and TV shows it seams.. and are still going today looking like there full name is ‘Artbox Entertainment’ but when I looked into that.. Nope.. Art Box Entertainment is a completely different company..

But lets see.. I like research.. Artbox: a JPP Amada Company.. They are in fact an American company created in 1997 as ‘Artbox Entertainment’ to make and market licensed products ,specializing in printed toys and collectibles. Thus this kinda board game and all the trading card stuff. The JPP Amada? well.. JPP is ‘Japan Printing Products USA Inc. Amada is for Amada Printing MFG. Co. Ltd which was the old name for what is now Ensky. They were a Japanese company created around the mid 1900s to manufacture, market and distributor licensed products. yep, that kinda company is nothing new. And on a list of stuff they done, while some are mis-labelled (WWF as Sports? huh…) it lists Battle for the Belt as a 2000 release board game and it seams, the only board game they released. They did, however, do a Monster Rancher trading card game and just a LOT of cards.

So.. That’s more about Artbox then I wanted to know really. Though I am starting to wonder if this game was a UK release.. There is no copyright details anywhere and… Oh look, you start in the “colored corner”.. USA spelling.. Why there are soo many copies of this in the UK, I’m not sure.. but it’s clearly from the USA and maybe officially sold copies in the UK but as a cheap import job.

The board is something interesting itself. They have really overly engineered the thing. To keep the box size down, the board is too big to fit flat. Do they have it fold in half? nope.. still wouldn’t fit. Fold in 4? well, that would have worked as there is ALOT of wasted space with the plastic tray but they don’t do that either. The Board is in two sections with the circle ‘ring’ in the centre as a rotation point. Both sides of the board fold and then the one side rotates under the other. It’s kinda a minor work of art. You then have 4 kinda card/paper ropes.. Well, each one folds in half to store, but comes out, gets put into a plastic runner and you put around the four edges of the board with one side being metal effect image saying ‘Battle for the Belt’ and the inside showing Ring ropes.

So… How does the game play? well….

It’s kinda fun but there are SOO many problems. The rules aren’t so much as confusing and contradictory as they are underexplained. The board design has a endorsement square each other space. But you start to see a problem when you go for that endorsement. As I said before, you have 7 endorsement cards in your deck.. and there are 7 different endorsements on the board (with the 8th space being a ‘steal a deal’ space) but.. you don’t have all 7 endorsements in each deck. I think the reason it doesn’t say you need 4 difference endorsements is that isn’t really easy as you have a few doubles. I was playing as Blue and it meant that I had no Movie deal or food deal in my deck, so those two spaces were pointless for me. A bit annoying but fair enough. It does give a bit of strategy as when you battle for an endorsement, the loser loses that endorsement if they already have it, so if you know a player which has that endorsement currently, they will lose it but also, if know that player DOESN’T have that endorsement in their deck, if you lose, they don’t gain anything.

None of the spaces have any rules which aren’t written on the square and this can create a minor issue. Steal a deal for example.. We played it as you could only steal a deal if you had that endorsement in your own deck as it didn’t seam like it was made so you could swap endorsement cards (also, I’ll point out.. board calls them Deals, cards and rules call them endorsements.. sigh.. try to be consistent) but I can’t say if this is the correct way or not. There are 2 miss a turn spaces, which are both labelled differently, with one of them saying you ‘Lose a turn’, the other says ‘sit out 1 round’).

We also have mostly ‘move back’ squares with the odd ‘move forward’. Like with alot of games, the rules don’t say when you move back, if you then apply the effect of that new square but we played it doing that, which appears the most common answer in most games. This can be good at times, or bad. of course. The rules mention the Shortcut spaces ‘Bad to the Bonz’ and ‘Have a nice day’ which work as a shortcut. Fair enough as they cut the board in half. But if you look on the board, there are 2 more spaces which appear to be the same as the shortcut spaces but.. aren’t. atleast in the rules, so we ignored them completely. Just used the two shortcut spaces which make 3 squares with the ring, with the ring only doing anything for the end game. I guess the other two ‘shortcut’ like spaces could be of use for that end game but this isn’t stated anywhere.

The only other real ruling issue I think was when you win a challenge. It basically says the winners go carries on from that space so we took that as being if you win a challenge, carry on your turn (roll the die again). Oh there was also a problem with that endorsement bit. Technically, the rules say you can only go for an endorsement that you don’t have. Making it a bit odd to have more then one of a card. I do kinda wonder if somehow my set has cards from two different sets but that doesn’t really make alot of sense. On the whole, we didn’t go for endorsements we already had but it was possible.

As I said, the game was pretty fun and not too long but it was kinda pretty random. There wasn’t a HUGE amount of strategy needed as you only really moved clockwise around the board, and battling was just rolling a dice. We played via the ‘advanced’ or longer game when instead of just rolling the battle boulders once, we rolled them as best of three for each round. and boy, the weight of them boulders. when they roll on the table there was a bit of a worry about damaging the table.

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So what are my final thoughts on this game? well, like I said, its not bad. Wouldn’t be something I would go highly into with replacing the figures with Miniatures etc, and I think the rules would need a bit of a re-write (Not a very hard thing to do but I’m not sure if I feel like putting in that effort.. even after writing all this ^_^). You can tell the company who made this aren’t really a company that make board games, but equally, with the quality of the card stock which.. isn’t terrible, it’s just not that good, I wouldn’t have pegged them for a trading card maker either. But it’s not a total waste as a game and you can have fun with it.