WWE 2K24 Showdown brings a renewed sense fun to the competitive scene

WWE 2K24's competitive scene has great potential as this celebrity event showed

2K Games

When you think of prestigious esports – especially in the fighting games space – I’d be willing to bet one of the last series that would come to mind is the WWE 2K series. Yet, whenever I find myself watching two skilled competitors go head-to-head, I can’t help but think that it’s an underrated esport.

In a way, the game’s perception shares that of pro-wrestling with the mainstream sporting world, being a bubble on the side that those not in the know look down their nose at. In the sporting world, this is due to the scripted nature of the sport, but in esports, it’s because of how the gameplay fits almost none of the traditional fighting game tropes.

There aren't lightning-quick combos that rely on frame-perfect inputs or anything that looks completely crazy to an outsider. High-level play in a WWE game doesn’t look that dissimilar from casual play, but in that lies an interesting niche that makes the WWE 2K series uniquely entertaining to watch.

The Rock showed up 2 hours late that night in Philly / 2K Games

While in Philadelphia for WrestleMania weekend, I attended a tournament where WWE wrestlers and celebrity guests faced off to call themselves the WWE 2K24 Showdown champion. When it started, I wasn’t in the best of moods, as we’d just had to stand around for two hours thanks to The Rock showing up ridiculously late to his planned appearance. However, once the gameplay started my mood quickly picked up, and a lot of that is thanks to how the goofiness of pro-wrestling carries over into even serious competitive play in the WWE games.

The way the games are designed puts inherent storytelling moments into matches. Things like the Trading Blows minigame and the various Payback mechanics all allow for moments where things turn on a dime and you never quite know who’s going to get the win, just like they do on the TV product. Even when a player kicks out of a move at just the last second, it sends that same lightning bolt of energy through me as when a wrestler does it in the ring.

Plus, it certainly helps when you’ve got people like R-Truth jumping around on stage making jokes. That over-the-top showmanship is an inherent part of wrestling, and if you’re going to make these games into esports events, then that’s exactly what I want to see at them.

R-Truth's popularity has soared of late thanks to his comedic genius / 2K Games

R-Truth in particular has a talent for comedy in wrestling, winning a huge swell of support from fans over the last year in his work with the Judgement Day. “I’m able to find comedy in everything,” Truth says. “Life is a movie, it’s a story, it’s what we make it, I’m able to just pull those emotions out by being natural and giving the people what they want to feel and what they want to see.”

So when he jumps around making quips behind his tag team partner The Miz (who was actually playing the game), it gives the whole thing that extra level of spectacle that makes pro-wrestling appealing in the first place. Esports can often be a world that takes itself incredibly seriously – for better and for worse – but pro-wrestling has never had that problem. Sometimes esports can forget to embrace the fun of video games, but the WWE 2K games never do.