7 People You Didn't Know Appear In 3 Different Sports Video Games Genres

What do Brock Lesnar and Snoop Dogg have in common?

Brock Lesnar
2K Games/EA Sports

In the world of video games, one genre that keeps gamers coming back time and time again is the realm of sports.

It seems that regardless of how trash the latest Madden or FIFA may get labelled, franchise fans are forever willing to immediately purchase the next installment in those particular franchises. With Ultimate Team and other money-sapping elements at play in these series, such games can be a serious cash cow for, in those cases, EA Sports.

The point here, is that people love a good sports release - and such games have a die-hard fan base well and truly engrained in them.

Across the pantheon of sports, though, there are those rare real-life athletes and personalities who somehow manage to transcend multiple sports and find themselves turning up in numerous different sports-based games. Sometimes this pulls on the very real multi-sport background of a person, while other times such inclusions are done more as a fun piece of unlockable content, pre-order exclusive or DLC.

Focussing on those names who have appeared in multiple sports releases, here are seven people who you may not be aware have appeared in three (or in some cases, four!) different sorts of sports video game genres (thanks to SquaredCircle reddit for the inspiration to this article!)

7. Honorary Mention: Dave Bautista

Brock Lesnar
2K Sports/Xbox Game Studios/Gazillion Entertainment

Before getting into the meat of this list, Dave Bautista is more than worthy of a special shout out.

These days, Big Dave is known as an actor who loves to push himself with a variety of different roles, from Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to Mr Hinx in the James Bond franchise, to Sapper Morton in Blade Runner 2049, to Tong Po in Kickboxer: Vengeance.

Affectionately known as the Animal, Bautista famously first made his mark as a professional wrestler, having been a huge part of WWE throughout the 2000s and beyond. As part of that, that meant that Bautista - or Batista, as his wrestling moniker was spelt - has appeared in a total of 22 WWE video games across the years.

There are no other 'sport' games for Dave, but his presence has been felt in other video game offerings. First and foremost, there was an entire ad campaign built around the fact that you can choose to select Batista as Marcus Fenix for the single player campaign mode of Gears 5.

As for a third element here, the likeness of Dave Bautista has also been used for several Marvel-driven releases, with Drax the Destroyer becoming an increasingly popular Marvel character since Dave first brought Drax to life in 2014.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.