Is the Poisonous Pipeline level from DKC3 a reference to Sabre Wulf?

I played a good bit of Sabre Wulf today and got farther than I ever did. I noticed that when you get a purple flower you turn purple and all the directional controls are reversed. The exact same thing happens in Poisonous Pipeline with the purple water (except for up and down). If this was Rare's intention to make a reference to one of their older games as Ultimate then that's pretty cool!

Poisonous Pipeline is a fun level in DKC3 but if you don't like when the controls are reversed then look at the game in a mirror while playing!