It makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it. Most of the wrestlers are on the road more than 200 days a year. Some of the bigger names are away from home more than 300 days a year. Like athletes in traditional sports, some of the wrestlers pack their consoles with them so they can play on the road.
Most of the WWE superstar gamers have mainstream tastes like our associate editor, Will Tuttle -- you know, they're "balls and guns" gamers. Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Madden, and NHL (there's a sizeable Canadian contingent in the WWE) were the most popular franchises among the grapplers. Some of the boys branch out a bit more. Kane, for example, is a big fan of Ubi's Tomy Clancy games.
Some of the guys are decent to respectable gamers. They play fairly often, but I'd bet that most GameSpy readers could take them down with little effort. Christian (my hero), John Cena, The Big Show, and Billy Kidman fall into this category. It was cool hearing some of their gaming stories. I learned that Christian finally gave up on his GameCube and switched over to PlayStation 2. The Big Show claims he's a much better gamer than any score he achieves would indicate; his hands are just too big for any controller on the market -- even the original Xbox controllers. He might have been boasting, but when a guy that's seven feet tall and 470 pounds tells you something, it's best to agree with him.
Shelton Benjamin beware! Daivari is the future of WWE gaming.
There are a handful of wrestlers that are totally hardcore. Stevie Richards, Kane, and Shelton Benjamin are the best gamers in the WWE. These guys play all the time and it shows. Richards claims that Kane is the most hardcore gamer in the WWE. While The Big Red Machine might play more than the other wrestlers, he's lost three years in a row to Shelton Benjamin in the THQ's WWE Superstar Challenge (the videogame tournament held before WrestleMania). No matter how many superstars and divas play in the tournament, Shelton always walks away with the crown. Richards and Kane are the only ones that have ever given him a run for his money. Next year, things might be a bit different.
See, during this year's Superstar Challenge I spent some time chatting with the next-generation of WWE gaming superstars. One of them appears to have what it takes to topple Shelton. His name is Daivari. Wrestling fans know him as the angry Arab-American that's screaming (literally) for equality, but I got to know him as an old-school gamer that still plays Chu-Chu Rocket on his Dreamcast. Daivari claims he's the only one on tour that can take down Shelton. He should get the chance at next year's tournament. Ladies and gentlemen, the next gen has arrived.
On a side note, Daivari has an interesting connection to GameSpy. He went to wrestling camp with one of The Spy's best freelance writers: Justin "Violent Lee" Leeper. The two have wrestled for several indie promotions. Daivari is now and up and coming WWE superstar and Justin ... well, Justin writes for GameSpy.
