Xavier Woods Gets Nostalgic With ‘Streets of Rage’ Cosplay

Austin Watson, known better as his WWE ring name Xavier Woods, is an avid fan of video games, and has a tattoo of the Wingcrest from The Legend of Zelda series on his left forearm to prove it. When he’s not in the ring, there’s a good chance Woods is doing something gaming related, whether it’s streaming under AustinCreed or creating content for his YouTube channel, UpUpDownDown.

That all said, Woods recently took to Twitter to once again display his passion for video games, this time with a sweet and nostalgic Streets of Rage cosplay. More specifically, cosplaying as Skate from the series alongside another cosplayer dressed as Axel.

For those that don’t know: Eddie “Skate” Hunter (known as Sammy Hunter in the Japanese version) is the second tritagonist of Streets of Rage 2 and the main tritagonist of Streets of Rage 3. The young brother of Adam Hunter, he is known as the weakest fighter in the series, but also the fastest. In other words, his speed offsets his shortcomings.

Streets of Rage 2 and Streets of Rage 3 both came out before I was born, but I remember when I was young watching my brother play the former all the time, and Skate was my favorite character thanks to his speed. I also just really dug his red skates. That said, he doesn’t get as much love as other characters from those two games, so it’s nice to see Xavier Woods giving Skate the shout-out and love he deserves.

As you may know, a new entry in the Streets of Rage series, Streets of Rage 4, was announced last year. At the moment of publishing this, platforms for the game have not been revealed, but the game is expected to release sometime this year via developers LizardCube and Guard Crush Games and publisher DotEmu.

As always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Did Xavier Woods nail the cosplay? Will you be picking up Streets of Rage 4 whenever it releases? I know I will be, and I assume Austin will be as well.