Daniel Pesina | |
|---|---|
 Daniel Pesina in 2017 | |
| Born | December 1, 1959 |
| Occupation(s) | Martial artist Actor |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Family | Carlos Pesina (brother) |
Daniel Pesina (born December 1, 1959) is an American martial arts expert and a former freelance employee of Midway.
Pesina was born in Chicago, Illinois to Mexican born parents and has studied martial arts since the age of 10. [1]
Pesina started his work as an extra in martial arts films, appearing as one of Shredder's foot soldiers in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze .
A lifelong friend of designer John Tobias, Pesina was brought by him to work in a fighting game featuring digitized characters, 1992's Mortal Kombat , where he played Johnny Cage and ninja characters Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Reptile, and served as a martial arts coordinator for the game. [2] Then in Mortal Kombat II he reprised his roles from the previous game, also playing the roles of Smoke, and Noob Saibot. [3]
After his participation in MKII, Pesina parted from Midway, [4] and sued them for unpaid royalties from his likeness being used in the console versions of the first two MK games, a case which he lost by summary judgment. [5] For this reason, from MK3 on his characters were played by different actors: John Turk would take over Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat 3 and the rest of the ninjas in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 , while Johnny Cage would be played by Chris Alexander in Mortal Kombat Trilogy . During this time, Pesina promoted BloodStorm (a fighting game designed by a former Midway employee who assisted in the making of Mortal Kombat series) in an advert, dressed up as Johnny Cage, which led to a long-standing rumor that Pesina had been fired from Midway over his participation in promoting BloodStorm. [6] He and his younger brother Carlos also secretly worked on Tattoo Assassins , another competing game to Mortal Kombat. Carlos Pesina remained with Midway until the company's closure, and as of 2019, still works at NetherRealm Studios.
He played a hitman in the 1996 martial arts movie Book of Swords, [7] which also starred fellow MK actors Katalin Zamiar, Ho-Sung Pak and Richard Divizio. Daniel and Carlos also appeared in a videogame-based comedy film entitled Press Start , which was released to DVD on September 25, 2007. In it, Daniel's character is called Sasori, which is Japanese for "Scorpion". As of 2004, Daniel is a teacher at the Chicago Wushuguan School.