That's who they based Johnny off of
"
Johnny Cage is a
fictional video game character from the
Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by
Midway Games. He was introduced as one of the series' original seven
player characters in the first
Mortal Kombat game in 1992, and has become a staple of the series. Created as a
parody of
martial arts film actor
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Cage is a cocky
movie star who provides the
comic relief of the franchise. He becomes a more rounded character in
Mortal Kombat X, which introduces his and
Sonya Blade's daughter
Cassie Cage."
"Original concept sketches for a proposed fighting game by artist
John Tobias showed a character called "Michael Grimm, the current
box office champion and star of such
movies as
Dragon's Fist,
Dragon's Fist II and the award-winning
Sudden Violence."
[4]Midway Games had hoped to license
martial artist and
actorJean-Claude Van Damme for the game that was intended to be modeled after Van Damme's 1988 film
Bloodsport,
[5] and the company created a short
demo reel that consisted of film footage of Van Damme inserted into a digital background in order to convince the actor to join the project.
[6] However, the attempt fell through, and when the fighting game later became
Mortal Kombat, the Michael Grimm character was retained as a spoof of Van Damme and renamed Johnny Cage.
[5] According to martial artist
Daniel Pesina, who portrayed Cage in the original game and the 1993 sequel
Mortal Kombat II, the character was first modeled after Daniel Rand from the
Iron Fist comic series.
[7]"
