The WWE 2K23 roster was officially confirmed on Monday, containing 187 current stars, legends, old-school alternative versions of wrestlers and wrestlers available only via DLC and pre-order bundles. However, even with so many wrestlers making the cut this year there was a noticeable number of current stars who didn’t. While the game’s development usually necessitates that the roster look like it did the first quarter of the previous year, it’s actually hard to tell where the cutoff point is for this game as many wrestlers that were brought back in the second half of 2022 (Braun Strowman, Johnny Gargano, Dexter Lumis and Dakota Kai to name a few) made the cut while others didn’t. Some that didn’t make the cut were also in previous installments of WWE 2K.
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Here’s a list of some noticeable wrestlers who didn’t make the WWE 2K23 roster:
- Bray Wyatt — released in July 2021, returned October 2022
- Candice LeRae — had her contract expire in May 2022 while on maternity leave, returned in September 2022
- Hit Row — released in 2021, returned in August 2022
- The Good Brothers — released in 2020, returned in October 2022
- Mia Yim — released in 2021, returned in November 2021
- Tegan Nox — released in 2021, returned in November 2022
- Maxxine Dupri —manager for Maximum Male Models since September 2022
- Bronson Reed — released August 2021, returned December 2022
- Emma — released in 2017, returned in October 2022
WWE 2K23 Roster Update
That list also doesn’t include a number of NXT wrestlers, though who made that cut seems to be arbitrary. Of the current wrestlers who did make the roster, a handful will be presented in the game with gimmicks they’ve since abandoned. That includes:
- Ezekiel — both he and Elias are in the game as separate characters, even though Ezekiel was written off in September
- Commander Azeez — recently returned to NXT as his previous gimmick Dabba-Kato
- Nikki A.S.H. — reverted back to Nikki Cross in October
- Maximum Male Models — Mace and Mansoor are both on the roster, but not under their new names ma.çé and mån.sôör that they’ve used since May
- Reggie — has been wrestling on NXT as Scrypts since October
- T-Bar — changed to his Dijak persona in October
- Queen Zelina — ditched her regal gimmick to start managing Legado Del Fantasma in October
- Happy Corbin — ditched the “Happy” moniker to in October, now wrestles as Baron Corbin again
Do you think 2K will attempt to update its roster post-launch? Or will fans have to wait until the eventual WWE 2K24 release to see many of these changes represented? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
