Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

WWE Superstar Xavier Woods Mentions Street Fighter, EVO & Final Round ATL on Monday Night Raw

  

Fighting games and pro-wrestling have had a deep-rooted bond since the very beginning of the genre. We've become accustomed to seeing fighting game characters paying homage to various WWE icons in their movesets, but we're definitely not used to hearing words like "EVO", "Final Round ATL" and "Street Fighter" on Monday Night Raw.  (Talk about things coming full circle!) In case you don't know, New Day's Xavier Woods (Austin Creed) has his own Youtube gaming channel (UpUpDownDown) and clearly loves his Street Fighter. Leading up to the insane "FGC mention" on Monday Night Raw, it seems it all started with this Street Fighter II Turbo Clash between Xavier and The Miz, below. (Spoiler Alert: Xavier pretty much destroys The Miz in SF2T with E. Honda fundamentals. Someone should remind Miz that blocking is a thing.)
 

 
Which leads us to the epic mention on Monday Night Raw. That's pretty big exposure EVO and Final Round ATL (even though 99.3% of the crowd probably didn't catch it). 

 
Why is this a big deal? ....Well, it's not every day that fighting game tournaments get mentions on mainstream television. Judging from the audience reaction, perhaps 10 or so people in that entire arena caught Xavier's reference. But all of us did.
 

 
Is this a precursor to WWE Superstar Xavier Woods eventually appearing a future fighting game tournament? He's already appeared on Cross Counter TV with Gootecks & Mike Ross playing some SFV beta... so he's got his foot in the door to say the least.
 


TFG Webmaster Frank Joseph with Austin Creed at CEO '17

 
Hmm, I wonder if Xavier has ever visited The Fighters Generation... (P.S. If you do, hit me up). In any case, I look forward to seeing more high flying, trombone-playing, and Street Fighter references on WWF WWE Raw & Smackdown.
~TFG Webmaster, Frank Joseph | @Fighters_Gen
 

 Sources:    CapcomFighters, @XavierWoodsPhD, Kenny Omega (YT)UpUpDownDownv2labBasedMonster

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