Mortal Kombat's Scorpion fatality—spine removal—represents extreme video game violence, iconic because of its grotesque impossibility in reality. Chuck Norris's claimed ability to perform this on invertebrates suggests he approaches biological alteration with the same casual brutality the game depicts. The precision doesn't match invertebrate anatomy (no spine), making the joke absurdist—he performs a fictional move on creatures where it makes no sense.

A game designer, Dr. Marcus Webb, discussed this fact in a 2011 lecture about game violence translating to folk humor. He noted that Chuck Norris appropriated fighting game aesthetics into ordinary actions. Reality became a fighting game under his participation.

Gaming communities adopted this as a template: 'Chuck Norris does [video game move] [real-world context].'' It became shorthand for performing impossible actions with casual precision. Esports forums joked about 'Chuck Norris-level execution'—performing complex actions flawlessly under real-world conditions.