Trivia / Ready 2 Rumble Boxing

• Cash-Cow Franchise: The first game holds the virtue of being among the original 17 "Sega All-Stars" games for the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast, and the second appeared on the PS2's "Greatest Hits" list for a time.
• Channel Hop: Midway Games published the first two games, but Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution was published by Atari due to Midway's collapse. Warner Bros. (current owner of the Midway properties) still controls the first two titles and their characters.
• Doing It for the Art: Word of God said that Michael Jackson refused to be paid for his involvement in the game, content with just being a part of the game instead.
• Franchise Killer: After Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution got canned^noteThe game was developed by Atari though. and Midway closed their doors in 2010, the hope for a new Ready 2 Rumble game is just about lost.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Round 2, Shaquille O'Neal's alternate trunks are black, with white and red trim, the colors of Miami Heat... On which Shaq would play four years after the game.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Physical copies of the first two games have gone rare. Even with the massive increase of interest after Michael Jackson's death, physical copies (especially the Dreamcast ports) are hard to come by.
  • That said, it's trivially easy to simply burn a CD-R with an ISO of the game to run on a Dreamcast, so it's not as bad as you'd think.
• Promoted Fanboy: Michael Jackson, having been a fan of the original game.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: In a similar vein to his guest appearance on The Simpsons, contractual issues prevented Midway from properly crediting Michael Jackson as a voice actor.
  • Also, thanks to potential licensing issues between MJ, Shaquille O'Neal & the Clintons, WB Games (the current owner of nearly all Midway properties, including Mortal Kombat) is unlikely to put out an Updated Re-release of Round 2 for a long time.
• The Other Darrin: Averted. Despite numerous reports, the head director of the game confirmed that all of the dialogue Michael Jackson's character used was not recorded by a soundalike, but MJ himself. Though some say he's using his real, low-key voice while others state that it was pitched down afterwards to make him sound more masculine/tough.
• What Could Have Been: Round 2 was slated to get an Xbox port, but never made it past a proof-of-concept tech demo.

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