Opinion: What we want in WWE 2K17: More WCW & NXT please! Part 2

We’re well into Wrestlemania season with the 32^nd annual event for the “Grandest Stage of them All” arriving this weekend.  In the first part of our build up to Wrestlemania 32 coverage, our very own Kamil spoke of what he’d love to see in the forthcoming WWE 2K17, which included the golden era of Philadelphia’s ECW with the great Paul Hayman at the helm.  You can read Part One here.

However, this week it’s my turn to ramble on about my passion of WWE and what I’d like to see implemented into WWE 2K17.  In my review of 2K16, while I enjoyed the game, I felt it was lacking in two key areas, one being the Showcase mode and the other in terms of the roster.  Yes, I know that 2K16 had by far the largest roster in the series ever, but I felt it missed a key opportunity by not capitalising on the “Diva’s Revolution”.  In all fairness the timing of the Divas Revolution happened a little too late in the games development cycle, but there’s no reason it can’t play apart in this year’s instalment.

 

While 2K16 had the likes of Paige, the Bella Twins, Summer Rae, Eva Marie, Tamina, Naomi, Alicia Fox, Natalya and err, Cameron, the female side of the roster could have been so much better.  The problem with the batch of Divas in 2K16 is that they were either irrelevant to current storylines or their characters were somewhat outdated.  But even if they were up-to-date, other than the usual exhibition matches or the ever rolling Universe mode, much like Superstars not featured in the Showcase mode, they never really had much purpose in the game either.

I know that it’s an impossible task to have every Superstar or Diva to feature in a Showcase mode, especially as 2K16 only had one Showcase at launch (unlike 2K15’s two Showcase campaigns), but for this year’s instalment, I’d love to see WWE’s Divas have a more prominent role, whether that be in Showcase or My Career.  I’ve been watching WWE religiously for many years, my first time watching WWE (or WWF as it was known back then) was Summerslam’88.  Where the Mega Powers featuring Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage went against “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant.  Since that very day I was hooked.

 

Throughout my devotion to WWE, up until recently, female wrestlers haven’t been portrayed in the best light with Bra and Pantie matches to Mud Wrestling contests. Other than the exception of the likes of Chyna (not including her activities outside of WWE), she was a woman that literally went toe-to-toe with the male competitors.  There were plenty of other talented female wrestlers over the years, such as Trish Stratus and Lita, but even they had their unsavoury moments, just look up the cringe worthy Edge and Lita live sex show, I kid you not, that actually happened.

So to say that female wrestling has come a long way (and still has further to go), is an understatement.  Fast forward to the present day when the Divas Revolution is in full swing. Considering what female wrestling used to be in WWE, the female talent was the main reason I watched NXT on the WWE Network, well before that in fact when England’s own Paige would not only hold the NXT Woman’s Championship, but she would debut the night after Wrestlemania 30 to claim the WWE Diva’s Title against AJ Lee on Monday Night Raw.  Many believed this to be the start of the Divas Revolution.  Following this epic moment, Paige would soon become a key member of the WWE’s main roster, which paved the way for NXT’s next batch of female talent to shine.

Depending on whether WWE 2K17 has one or two Showcase campaigns, all depends on what I’d like to see in the game.  To really capitalise on the talented male and female roster, it would be great to have both genders on the NXT roster to take centre stage.  One of those ways in which they could be implemented would be for them to have their own Showcase mode.  Giving you the opportunity to relive and playthrough the early key moments of Diva’s such as Paige’s defining tenure in NXT, leading into the WWE main roster.

As well as playing the defining moments of Charlotte Flair’s, Sasha Bank’s and Becky Lynch’s career in NXT and how they made a huge impact on the WWE main roster, paving the way for future talent like Bayley, Nia Jax and Asuka.  Then for the male side of things, we could playthrough the Sami Zayn/Kevin Owen’s feud, the introduction of Samoa Joe, right on back to Seth Rollins being the first NXT champion.  Just image all those epic NXT feuds we could experience, all complete with the Takeover events.

Another way would be to give the flagging My Career mode some real purpose, in which if you create a female wrestler, you would go up against all the aforementioned Divas and Superstars, instead of just having a male orientated career, why not have both with two separate storylines with your created wrestler?  To have the option of both gender careers, would certainly have me taking this jaded mode seriously.  But that’s just one aspect that I’d love to see implanted into 2K16’s campaign modes, the other side I’d love to see is WCW done right.

Back before the days of WCW Nitro appearing on cable TV in the UK, WCW used to air during the early hours of the morning.  So when I was a young child between the years of 1990-92, I used to set my alarm to wake up from 1am to watch WCW for the face painted surfer, aka Sting.  The only problem with my waking during these hours, was that WCW did not have a set time, instead it would air anytime between 1am-3am, but that didn’t stop me attempting to watch my alternative to my beloved WWE (I’ll refer to it as WWE instead of WWF for the benefit of this article).

Over the years since the NES days, WWE games have been very forthcoming, with WCW games being quite a rarity in comparison of quality and quantity.  My favourite of which was WCW Revenge on the Nintendo 64, released in 1998.  Since that time, I’ve not had anything to fill my void, not that I expect a standalone WCW game in this day and age, but I believe with the Showcase modes in the WWE 2K games, they offer a wonderful opportunity to tell a story for new and veteran fans that may have lived through or missed the good and bad days of WCW.

 

The day before Wrestlemania 32 this coming weekend, “The Icon” Sting will finally be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.  It’s been a long time coming with Sting and WWE, even though it would have been great to have him come into the company at least 10 years ago, but at least he’s here and at least he’s had his Wrestlemania moment last year, even though he did lose to Triple H.   Before WCW become more mainstream, Sting was a popular figure in NWA as the tag team partner of James Helwig aka The Ultimate Warrior (God rest his soul) and in 1988, Sting’s career really began to take off when he challenged Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Clash of the Champions.  The build up to this iconic match for me offers a great starting point to tell the story of WCW through the illustrious career of Sting in the Showcase mode.

From 1990 to around 1995 the Surfer Sting was in full force and he was without a doubt the main man in WCW, being a Tag Team champion and of course the WCW World Heavyweight champion.  He had so many iconic feuds with not only Ric Flair, but also The Four Horsemen, The Steiner Brothers, Sid Vicious, Big Van Vader and much more.  But as the mid-90’s approached, fans started to grow tired of the goodie-two-shoes good guys and popular figures such as the iconic yellow and red Hulk Hogan were getting booed out of the building.

 

Sting knew this was the time to freshen things up, to find a new gimmick, something for the fans to get behind.  So following a lengthy hiatus, Sting returned as the awesome Crow gimmick.  Long gone was the bright bleached blond hair and colourful ring attire, now he had a moody, dark Sting that never uttered a word as he let the fighting and his trusty baseball bat do the talking.  This all arrived at the time with the emergence of the NWO, which originally consisted of Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Hollywood Hogan, which set up some of the most memorable feuds with Sting and others on the WCW roster.

This moment especially would make for an amazing Showcase mode, telling the story of Sting’s early career in the NWA and early WCW days, leading right up to how Nash and Hall jumped ship from WWE to WCW to form The Outsiders.  From around 1996-1998, WCW was at its most popular era with Monday Night Nitro being its flagship weekly show, going up against WWE’s Monday Night Raw, which of course became known as the Monday Night Wars and WCW and WWE battled it out in a raging war for TV ratings.  Sadly, in 2001, WCW came to an end after being bought out by WWE, which resulted in an emotional one last battle between Ric Flair and Sting while it was aired live on TV via Monday Night Raw, as well as on live WCW TV.

Following the takeover, this led to a storyline of Vince McMahon’s son, Shane being the owner of WCW, which then gave us the WCW Invasion storyline in 2001.  But with popular WCW talent such as Sting and Goldberg not coming over to WWE directly after the collapse of WCW, this was a storyline that could have been so much better.  Though during this time, WWE did buyout ECW, which meant that we then had the likes of Rob Van Dam, The Dudley’s, DDP, Tazz, Booker T and more being on the WWE roster at the same time.  However, Goldberg did finally join WWE in 2003, but despite him being a World Heavyweight champion, this brief stint was a wasted opportunity which ended in 2004 following one of (if not) the worst match in Wrestlemania history with Brock Lesner (who also left the company at this exact time).

 

Before Goldberg’s brief stint, Hogan, Nash and Hall did invade the WWE in 2002 with the NWO, which was a little more successful then Goldberg’s brief WWE career.  Especially for Hulk Hogan who quickly turned from an NWO heel, to the red and yellow Face, soon becoming a WWE champion once more.  Now after the recent Hulk Hogan shenanigans, I would be surprised if Hogan would appear in a WWE game again anytime soon, but given WCW’s illustrious history, starting from the early career of Sting, the Outsiders and NWO, right on up to the fall of the company and the Invasion storyline in 2001.

With Sting being inducted into this year’s Hall of Fame, not to mention the hope of Goldberg being inducted into next year’s ceremony, it grants a perfect opportunity for WWE and 2K Games to have one of the most meaningful and exciting Showcase modes to date.  Just think if WWE 2K17 not only told the story of WCW, but also told the rise of NXT from Seth Rollins to Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens battling it out at Wrestlemania 32.

I for one am excited at the prospect of that happening, but that is just my opinion.  What do you think?  Do you want to see the story of WCW featuring Sting or even Goldberg’s 173 unbeaten run, or the Divas Revolution feature in WWE 2K17 or do you have hopes of something completely different?  Let us know in the comments section below and don’t forget, you can read Part One of What we want in WWE 2K17 here.