10 Strangest WWE Video Game DLC Packs

What makes the perfect WWE video game DLC pack?

Freshness, above all else.

Players don't want to pay to play as drab garbage. If Papa Shango - a Charles Wright character who hasn't been portrayed in WWE since October 1993 - can make the base roster, players shouldn't have to be forking out to purchase the latest set of WWE Tag Team Champions or the hot new signing WWE made several months ago. Modern grapplers should always be favoured over the names of yore; after all, it's these current-day WWE Superstars who are keeping Vince McMahon's sports entertainment empire afloat amidst a sea of trivial storylines, nonsensical characters, and pending lawsuit investigations.

WWE 2K23, the company's latest foray into the realm of gaming, largely understood this. Although the game boasted the largest NXT roster to date, there was a sizeable chunk of the roster missing. Absent, too, was a glut of main roster names who returned to the company too late to be considered.

It won't always be perfect, because for every NXT inclusion, there'll be that one guy on the Internet complaining about how there's a random legend in there who doesn't make sense - like...

WWE 2K23's NXT roster was minted with a surplus of top-tier talents in their series debuts, from Bron Breakker and Grayson Waller, to Cora Jade and Toxic Attraction. Those notable by their absence were made up for as part of the five DLC packs, offering players eventual access to the likes of Nathan Frazer, Tiffany Stratton, and Andre Chase.

In the third-to-release pack, Race to NXT, Ivy Nile, Tony D'Angelo, Trick Williams, and Wendy Choo were made playable. All had made lasting impacts on WWE's purported third brand since its September 2021 NXT 2.0 revamp and were, for the most part, expected to be base roster members; Williams was perhaps the most conspicuous absentee, given the on-disc appearance of established partner Carmelo Hayes.

Rounding up the pack, oddly, was the late Harley Race. He's a hoot to play as and 2K nailed his character model, but he's hardly in the same boat as an Italian mob boss or a woman whose whole schtick is that she likes a good kip.

It's not the first time WWE has released an NXT-centric DLC pack with a bizarre inclusion - but at least on those occurrences, the odd inclusion had some connection to the brand.