Ahead of his supposed final WrestleMania, John Cena has become a bad guy. It was one of the most shocking moments in recent WWE history, and a few weeks ago in Belgium, he picked one kid out of the crowd to direct his anger at, leaving the youngster on the verge of tears. A few days later, the kid was interviewed, saying that he had no ill will toward the Superstar because he knew Cena was playing a character. Even for that 10-year-old, kayfabe is dead.
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In professional wrestling lingo, kayfabe is the idea that what happens in the ring is “real.” That doesn’t just mean that the in-ring action isn’t scripted. In the past, it also extended to the storylines. After all, if Roman Reigns and CM Punk are feuding on TV, fans wouldn’t expect to see them hanging out at a bar after the show.
However, the rise of behind-the-scenes dirt sheets, increased media around the wrestling world, and, most notably, the internet, kayfabe as it was known, has been “dead” for several decades. Most fans point to 1989 as the death of kayfabe after WWE owner Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that wrestling was not a competitive sport. That said, there were hints of its impending demise preceding that event. Famously, heated rivals The Iron Sheik and Hacksaw Jim Duggan were caught hanging out ahead of a big match at Madison Square Garden in 1987, which led to them both temporarily leaving the WWE.
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The death of kayfabe doesn’t mean the audience doesn’t still suspend its disbelief. In fact, wrestling companies knowing that we know it’s all scripted allows writers and performers to blur the lines even further, making a product that’s often more compelling than the kayfabe days. Strangely, the only place the WWE hasn’t kept up with the times is in its WWE 2K series. For some reason, in the digital world, kayfabe is alive and well.
That’s long been my problem with the WWE 2K games. Real-life wrestling is a partnership between two wrestlers trying to put on a show in the ring. On the surface, they’re fighting each other, but to pull off all those intricate in-ring moves, they need to work together. WWE 2K25 and its predecessors toss that cooperative aspect away to turn wrestling into a fighting game.
It puts the franchise in a strange bucket. It wants to be a simulation sports title like Madden or NBA 2K. However, those games are simulating real-life sports. WWE 2K25 is simulating the idea of wrestling, not what’s actually happening in real life.
To be clear, that’s not necessarily a problem. Plenty of people love the in-ring action of WWE 2K25. I might not be one of them, but I can appreciate that the franchise reviews well and sells even better.
Still, it remains strange that kayfabe is alive and well in WWE 2K25 because the developers haven’t figured out a fun way to simulate what happens in a real WWE ring. The closest they get is Showcase Mode. There, you have to complete various objectives to earn rewards.
However, your opponent is still actively working against you. Instead of trying to build a memorable matchup that will light the world on fire, they’re constantly fighting you to get their moves in. It’s not a scripted give-and-take to keep the crowd hot. It’s a rush to beat each other down and earn the pin.
It gets even weirder when you jump into the create-a-player story in MyRise. Within the first few minutes of starting the mode, you meet a producer. In real life, producers help wrestlers organize the match. They give them ideas for big spots, discuss how the finish will go down, and generally help performers and writers get on the same page so the story moves forward correctly.
In WWE 2K25, the first thing your producer does is send you back for one last match before joining the WWE, saying it’d be great if you didn’t lose. In real life, your producer would know if you were winning or losing, not hope for the best. Once that first match is over, the producer stands around and offers you one-off matches in between story beats. It sets the tone for a strange disconnect that infects the entire mode.
Wrestlers don’t have free rein to show up unannounced at WWE shows. Creative leads like Triple H don’t “keep their hands out of” major decisions like a full takeover of the promotion. To be clear, those story elements are fun. They make the mode. However, it adds to the feeling of WWE 2K25 being stuck in a strange limbo between arcade fun and sports simulation that no one has been able to solve.
Again, I’m in the minority of people who care about this. For all intents and purposes, WWE 2K25 is a fun video game that’s maybe stuffed with too many modes. It’s also the weirdest product the WWE puts out because it’s the one place kayfabe still exists. For whatever reason, it’s still real to Visual Concepts, dangit.
