Daniel Pesina

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Daniel Pesina as "The Hitman" in The Book of Swords

Daniel Pesina (born 1959 in Chicago, Illinois) is a martial arts expert and a former employee of Midway. He is most recognized as the actor who played Johnny Cage and ninjas Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, Smoke, and Noob Saibot in Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II.

Daniel Pesina as "Johnny Cage" in Mortal Kombat II

Pesina was fired from Midway in 1994 after dressing similarly to the character, Johnny Cage, he portrayed in MK and MKII for an ad for the Strata arcade game, BloodStorm, which turned out to be an emphatic flop among fighting game fans. The ad first appeared in the debut issue of the now-defunct Electronic Gaming Monthly spinoff magazine EGM2. [1]

After his departure from Midway, further ventures into other fighting games proved unsuccessful. After the failure of BloodStorm, he and his brother Carlos Pesina assisted Data East with its digitized MK clone Tattoo Assassins, which, despite an extensive feature in a summer '94 issue of EGM, never made it to arcades. In 1995, he and fellow MK actors Ho Sung Pak, Katalin Zamiar, and Dr. Phillip Ahn, M.D. all appeared in a fighting game produced exclusively for the Atari Jaguar titled Thea Realm Fighters, but it was never released after Atari ceased production on the failed system later that year.

Daniel Pesina in Wushu gear

Pesina appeared in the 1992 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze, in which he played one of Shredder's foot soldiers. In 2002, he played a small part in the martial arts movie The Book of Swords. He portrayed a hitman whose task was to take out the movie's leading man (played by Pak). The movie also starred Zamiar and another MK actor, Richard Divizio. In a nod to his Mortal Kombat alter ego Johnny Cage, Pesina is shown wearing sunglasses, while the other three actors are also seen in similar MK clothing/roles throughout the movie.

The brothers Pesina will also be appearing in a videogame-based comedy film entitled Press Start, which is due out in 2007. Possibly in a nod to Mortal Kombat, Daniel's character is called Sasori, which is the Japanese for scorpion.

As of 2004 Dan Pesina is a teacher at the Chicago Wushuguan School, while Carlos, who played Raiden in the 2D Mortal Kombat games, has been employed at Midway since 1995.