Suicide has had an interesting career in TNA, for over 12 years he’s been a mainstay of the X Division, he’s won championships, he has even challenged for the Impact World Championship. It’s hard to believe that it all started in a video game.
Suicide In The TNA Impact! Video Game
Suicide was created as an original character by Midway Games for the TNA Impact video game released on September 9, 2008. As an original character, Midway had the full license with how to use him, unlike the rest of the TNA roster in the game who were either licenced by TNA or by the respective wrestler. In the game, the Suicide character was voiced by Low Ki, who also did motion capture for the character.
The game starts with Suicide preparing for a match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Before the match, he is approached by LAX, who tell him the “Big Man” wants him to take a dive and lose the match. Suicide doesn’t comply and instead goes on to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. This results in Suicide being beaten beyond recognition by LAX, who leave him for dead in Mexico. The “Big Man” had ordered a hit on Suicide!
The year is 2008 and the promotion is TNA… Can you guess who the “Big Man” is?
Suicide is found alive by doctors but is suffering from amnesia, the doctors offer him free plastic surgery (free?!) allowing the player to create a new look and name for Suicide.
From there Suicide (with a new identity) finds out that he has some talents in the wrestling ring and starts from the bottom up in the Mexican wrestling scene. Seeing his success in Mexico, Kevin Nash recruits Suicide for the TNA roster. Suicide goes on to have success in the X Division and the tag division, forming a tag team with Eric Young called the Salty Biscuits. LAX then kidnap Eric Young and threaten to kill him if Suicide doesn’t win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from Kurt Angle and then drop it to the “Big Man.”
Suicide beats Kurt Angle to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and suddenly all of Suicide’s memories come flooding back! Suicide discovers that the “Big Man” who ordered the hit on him was none other than … Jeff Jarrett (of course it was Jeff Jarrett). Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe save Eric Young from LAX and Suicide gains revenge on Jeff Jarrett by defeating him in a match to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Who Played The Suicide Gimmick In Real Life?
In August 2008, episodes of Impact would have the website "whoissuicide.com" flash on the screen for less than a second. The website showed a video of Suicide being taken from the game into real-life television…
And thus Suicide was born in the real world. He looked exactly like his video game counterpart, he had cool music, and he had a cool entrance where he would zip wire from the roof of the Impact Zone into the ring.
But who was the man under the mask?
In the video game it was Low Ki portraying Suicide but in real life Frankie Kazarian was the first person to adopt the Suicide persona. Unfortunately, a few months into the gimmick Kazarian got injured but the Suicide persona would live on as Christopher Daniels would take over the mask.
It was all very strange. Suicide was cool and all but fans would have probably just preferred Kazarian and Daniels to wrestle as themselves. Either way, Daniels as Suicide would go on to win the X Division Championship at Destination X 2009, even recreating his iconic dive onto the Ultimate X structure.
Kazarian and Daniels were not the only people to take up the Suicide costume over the years, in 2010 Kiyoshi would become Suicide, taking over from Daniels. After a 2 year absence, Suicide would return to TNA in 2013, this time being portrayed by TJP, who would become the somewhat definitive Suicide, as he would portray the character on and off from 2013 to 2021. Jonathan Gresham, Caleb Konley and Zachary Wentz would also have short stints under the mask. In 2013, Austin Aries would famously wear the mask once to win the X Division Championship and then invoke Option C to challenge for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, which he would go on to win.
So… quite the lineage for a character that all started in a video game.