Here’s our first look at Jean-Claude Van Damme as Johnny Cage in MK1

polygon.com:

When Mortal Kombat 1 was announced in May, one of the first (and most fascinating) details revealed about the game was its inclusion of actor/martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme making an appearance as Johnny Cage. Van Damme is partially responsible for the very existence of Mortal Kombat; he declined to appear in a proposed arcade game from then-developer Midway, leading MK co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias to come up with an original fighting game project instead.

Now, just a week before Mortal Kombat 1 is released in early access, we finally get a look at Van Damme as Johnny Cage in an unexpected way: via Ed Boon’s appearance on talk show Hot Ones, where guests endure hot sauces of increasingly excruciating heat levels while being interviewed. Boon talks briefly about Van Damme’s history with the franchise while a 71,000 Scoville-unit hot wing does a Fatality on his tongue.

“When we made the very first game, our original intention was to make Van Damme: The Arcade Game,” Boon said, between winces. “Bloodsport was big, and Universal Soldier, so we called his people and we’re like, ‘We want to make a game based on Van Damme.’ And I don’t know if he declined, or it just never got to him, but [we were] a couple of 20-something-year-old kids who wanted to make a video game. I could see how Van Damme could go ‘No, no we’re not doing this.’ We tried a number of times, going back and forth with him. This time, we hit the lottery and we got him.”

The actor’s appearance in Mortal Kombat 1 appears to be based on Van Damme in his younger Bloodsport/Kickboxer era. He’s dressed in a costume nearly identical to that of the original Johnny Cage design — belt, slippers, and spandex shorts — introduced in 1992’s Mortal Kombat.

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