Video Game World Champ Travels to Ohio Arcade to Break World Record

Daniel Lee Perea

Records are made to be broken. At least that’s the opinion of avid video gamer Daniel Lee Perea. He’s broken well over 100 of them, and has appeared in three volumes of Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition – most recently in the 2016 edition.

“I grew up thinking I was pretty good, but as an adult I started measuring myself against the best in the world and discovered objectively that… yeah. I’m not too shabby.”
The result? Oxford’s own Perea is a top-ten ranked Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! player, holds the world record biggest blowout score on four different versions of NBA Jam, and has a string of wrestling game records to his credit on TwinGalaxies.com. An organization that’s been the authority on world record high scores since 1983, and supplies Guinness World Records with many of the statistics printed in their yearly book. Daniel’s favorite records include Super Wrestlemania, WWF Raw, and perhaps the godfather of them all – Nintendo’s “Pro Wrestling.” As famous for its “A Winner Is You!” internet meme as it is for its 1980s gameplay.

“I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was a kid and just never grew out of it. I think it’s an performance artform. Sometimes I go into Ric Flair-like rants about being a world champion.”

But the one thing not on Perea’s resume: an arcade machine record (all his records are on home consoles.) That may be about to change this Monday night (January 25th) at Columbus Ohio hotspot, 16-bit Bar + Arcade.

“When I’m not playing the Ms. Pac-Man machine in Square Pizza, my work here in Oxford with PMQ Pizza Magazine takes me all over the world, including to Columbus for the North American Pizza & Ice Cream Show every year. I fell in love with 16-bit Bar + Arcade there. They have an old Wrestlefest arcade machine and I hatched the idea of doing a public, live record-breaking attempt at one of my favorite bars in the world. I contacted them to set it up as an event with some of the bar’s proceeds that night to go to charity, and they were game. No pun intended.”

Starting at 7pm ET, Perea will attempt to break the record for Most Eliminations in the Royal Rumble mode of Wrestlefest – one day after the WWE’s real-life pay per view counterpart. Everyone is invited to join the victory celebration which Perea insists will be inevitable.

“Ole Miss brought the Sugar Bowl title to Mississippi. Now it’s my turn to bring the Wrestlefest world title back to Mississippi! Can I get a hell yeah?”

Damn right.

But one other thing is new about this attempt. Daniel Lee Perea has upgraded from a hobbyist to semi-pro gamer, landing his first sponsors Yalobusha Brewing Co. and Cleveland Ohio area chain, Master Pizza for his gaming brand, El Bebop Gaming.

“Pizza and beer. Together. What could be better than that?”

Perea hopes to use the El Bebop Gaming brand and sponsorships to do more live events in the future to raise money for charity.

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