Xavier Woods Talks About What Makes A Wrestling Video Game Great, Kenny Omega’s G-1 Climax Win, More

Comicbook.com interviewed Xavier Woods while he was at Atlanta’s DragonCon this past week ahead of the WWE 2K17 release. Woods comments on a number of topics and you can read the full interview by clicking HERE.

You can find some excerpts from it below.

Related: 24 More WWE 2K17 Superstar Names Revealed

So WWE 2K17 comes out next month. Have you had a chance to play it yet?

I haven’t had a chance to play it. I went to the party to do interviews about my YouTube Channel UpUpDownDown, please subscribe if you haven’t already. We’re up to 700,000 subscribers. So I think it’ll be cool. It’s one of the games that I kinda keep myself away from until it launches unless I absolutely have to cover things for it. I know a lot of people like to get information about the beforehand. Like, I’m excited about the Final Fantasy VII and when that’s coming out, but I want it to be a clean experience. Almost like seeing a movie without seeing the commercials for it. From what everybody says it’s going to be cool with new features. Obviously new people on the roster that haven’t been in the game before, so that’s cool too. 

I saw the New Day entrance and it’s funny because if you enjoy wrestling, you might remember a guy by the name of Trent Baretta. He texted me and goes “I’m sorry.” I go “for what?”. Turns out he was doing the [motion capture] for the game and did my entrance. “I watched it a hundred times and tried to do my best, but I can’t move like you so I hope you like it. I’m sorry”. I’m like, I’m sure you did fine, but then watched it and yep, that’s Trent [laughs]. That’s definitely Trent dancing. 

Now you mention your YouTube Channel, but you also love competing against your friends. A while back, you went up against New Japan’s Kenny Omega. What was that like?

We went best of five. He beat me two to five, but he also plays with the best Street Fighter players from Japan constantly. So he has a little bit of an edge on me considering how much I travel. I don’t usually have great wifi in hotels. So I play against the computer or Kofi. 

When people are surprised I can do things is always fun. Just because I have muscles, doesn’t mean I don’t play video games. I love playing games, so just wait for the rematch!

Also, what I don’t see is Kenny Omega cosplaying as Alex. I don’t know if you saw, but I cosplayed as Birdie [during the con], but yeah, Kenny is an awesome dude though and a great human being. 

He just won the G1 Tournament. First North-American to do so, right?

Yeah, congrats to him! He’s one of my favorite guys to watch in the ring and him and the [Young Bucks] are cool. It’s always cool to go on Twitter and have a little interaction with them since we can’t actually have it in person. For me, there are so many art forms in wrestling. There’s the Ring of Honor art, the New Japan art, so whatever you enjoy, there’s a facet of wrestling out there for you to watch. It’s cool for me to respect guys out there across the board. I love it. It’s something I’ve loved since I was a kid and always great when I find other guys in my profession who love the same games as me. So finding Kenny was fantastic. 

We had a lot of mutual friends and I remember it was almost like a cold call. It was like “hey, are you…cool…with video games?”. Luckily our friendship blossomed from there. So it’s great when I can meet people in this job that love the same games.