Cory Graves
Three Links Is Hosting a Tecmo Super Bowl Tournament The Weekend Before The Real Super Bowl.
After traveling to Madison, Wisconsin, last year to compete in The nation's biggest and longest-running Tecmo Super Bowl tournament, Dallasites Brett Michael Strawn and Chris Derow figured a similar event might work well back home in Dallas. And, on January 26 at Three Links, the pair will put that theory to the test as they host a 32-player tournament at Three Links in the hope that it'll act as a learning experience, of sorts, in their quest to grow the event into the nearly 300-player spectacle that the national tournament has become.
Surely, this is huge news for children of the early '90s who've never forgotten the cult classic NES game or still harbor injuries from their playing days.
Oh, sure, it may have been Mortal Kombat that was drawing all the attention back then, winding up as the subject of countless evening news reports for its pixelated depictions of blood, but let's be frank: There was no video game from the early '90s that incited more pre-teen violence than Tecmo Super Bowl.
Stick with us here for a second: Before the Madden franchise grew into the juggernaut that it is today, there was only one football video game that was worth a shit — and that was Tecmo Super Bowl, the first-ever game to feature all the actual NFL players of the day.
So why did it lead to so many kiddie fist fights? Because as Herculean as Los Angeles Raiders running back Bo Jackson's exploits may or may not have been in real life, he was nothing short of a god in Tecmo Super Bowl. When used right, nothing could keep him out of the end zone. And, in every group of friends, there was that one kid that just insisted on picking teams first — and, thus, picking the Raiders — every goddamned time he played.
For what it's worth: Strawn tells us that his tournament will instate a few rules to discourage any Bo Jackson-hoarding and/or any all-out controller-to-the-face brawls. Says Strawn: “Before each game, there is a coin toss. The winner of the toss will pick the two teams that will play. The other player will pick which of those two teams he wishes to use.”
Just known going in: If you plan on being one of the inaugural 32 participants at this event, you should take thing with the seriousness it warrants. Not only will it cost you $20 to enter, but you'll have to sit through eight hours of matches throughout the day.
On the plus side, though, the top eight finishers will at least earn their entry fee back, and the top four will take home a nice chunk of change to boot, as all of the entry fees will go into the pot to be split among the top players.
For more information on the event, which is being called “Tecmo Texas,” head here. Below, meanwhile, revel in the glory that was Bo Jackson, video game character.
