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.

[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.

During this time, Pesina promoted BloodStorm (a fighting game designed by 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.

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.