AJ Styles has spent decades mastering the professional wrestling ring, but when it comes to modern wrestling video games, the former WWE Champion admits he’s not nearly as comfortable.
During a recent episode of the Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles spoke about classic wrestling titles like Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, WCW vs. nWo Revenge, and WWF No Mercy. While reflecting on those games, he explained that he still prefers the simpler arcade-style gameplay from earlier eras rather than the complex control systems used in modern wrestling titles. Styles said the increasing number of mechanics and button combinations in modern sports games can make them difficult to pick up casually.
“Yeah, it’s always too much. I mean, UFC, I remember playing it with the boys at the locker room, right? We only had no grappling, just knockouts. That’s all, you know, that’s all we could do if I play. That’s what I wanted to do because the grappling is definitely much harder to grasp than throwing punches and kicks and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s just too much where you hold the button and you do a strong grapple or you tap it and you do a light grapple. It just got to the point where I was like this is not as fun as just arcade-style wrestling or arcade-style fighting games. That for me was my sweet spot.”
According to Styles, the added complexity can push casual players away because the learning curve becomes too steep.
“The more buttons you introduce, the harder a game’s going to be to learn. And if you’re not a fan, you’re not going to be willing to spend that time in the lab to get better and take hours. Like the new 2K games are too much for me. I don’t want to spend all that time.”
Despite being featured in several WWE video games over the years, Styles admitted he once entered a gaming competition involving a WWE 2K title without really knowing how to play it. The result was exactly what you might expect. Even Styles had to laugh at how badly the match went once it started.
“I did a tournament where the guy was going to wrestle me in a 2K game for a million dollars. I’m like, guys, I don’t know how to play the game. I don’t know how to play the game. And so he just murdered me because I didn’t know what I was doing. Just give him the million dollars. It’s fine.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been easier, because it was that easy to beat me up in that game.”
Styles remains a lifelong gamer and still enjoys playing older titles, but his comments make it clear he prefers wrestling games that are easy to pick up rather than ones that require hours of practice just to understand the controls.
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