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 feels far less comfortable.
During a recent episode of the Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles reflected on classic wrestling games such as Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, WCW vs. nWo Revenge, and WWF No Mercy. While discussing those titles, Styles explained that he still prefers the simpler arcade-style gameplay from earlier generations rather than the increasingly complex control systems found in modern wrestling games.
According to Styles, many newer sports titles introduce so many mechanics and button combinations that they can become difficult for casual players to enjoy.
“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.”
He explained that once modern games began introducing multiple grappling inputs and layered mechanics, the experience stopped feeling as fun as the straightforward arcade-style titles he grew up with.
“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.”
Styles believes the growing complexity of modern games can push casual players away entirely 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 appearing in multiple WWE video games over the course of his career, Styles admitted he once entered a gaming competition involving a WWE 2K title without really knowing how to play it. The result, he said, was exactly what you might expect.
“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.”
He later joked that the result might not have been much different even if the controls had been simpler.
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been easier, because it was that easy to beat me up in that game.”
Styles remains a longtime fan of video games and still enjoys playing older titles, but his comments make it clear he prefers wrestling games that are easy to pick up and play rather than ones that require hours of practice just to learn the controls.
