The designs for WWE's abandoned platform fighting game 'Brawl' probably explain why it was abandoned

NO RING. NO REF. NO RULES.

That was to be the slogan for WWE Brawl, a project the company's then-video game license holder THQ planned as the third phase of their development strategy, after the core simulations and the arcade-style fighter WWE All Stars. The idea was to create a platform fighter in the vein of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros.

For whatever reason, the game was never released. The design sketches WWE.com has shared might point to why. The work THQ's Australian studio Blue Tongue Entertainment did back in 2009 isn't bad, but it rarely rises above the level of okay.

We've seen cooler sketches from past website features like "WWE High". What we get from Brawl seems more like one of their many failed comic book adaptations.

It's a fun piece of trivia, though, maybe moreso for the gamers of the internet wrestling community. The WWE.com feature includes some gameplay demo footage, too, which gives you a better sense of what might have been.

Disappointed you never got to battle it out using your favorite Superstars "with a destructive twist via interactive, in-game environments"?