WWE 2K20: 7 Most Shocking Roster Omissions
Or: Where's Walter?
Let's address the pachydermal protuberance in the parlour first and foremost: NXT Champion Adam Cole, his Undisputed Era brethren, and the whole bally-lot of NXT.
As yet, only Velveteen Dream from the black and gold brand has been confirmed for WWE 2K20, even though we're less than a month away from the game's release. Is this appropriate cause for concern?
We're going to lean towards 'no'. 2K themselves have confirmed via their official website that the stars of NXT will feature in their latest WWE effort, and as the nominal developmental division redefines itself as a separate television entity on the USA Network, it could just be the case that the devs are holding back for a more suitably grand reveal of the alternative roster.
At least, that's what we hope. Can you imagine a WWE game without any of Cole, Gargano, Riddle et al.? It'd be a disgrace.
The supplementary elephant - the supplemelephant, if you will - cascading from the above caveat is that WWE 2K20's roster reveal is likely not complete - making this high-horsing a little bit hysterical. All the same, various factors mean that it's reasonable to assume the following folk, if not confirmed by now, won't be. With one possible exception.
7. Maria Kanellis
So long as she's chaining babies, it's probable Maria Kanellis simply hasn't been available for any scans beyond ultrasounds over the past year, making her current disinclusion from the WWE 2K20 roster somewhat understandable. Given Mrs. Bennett had been a complete non-entity on Raw right up until she and her husband Mike reappeared to launch an Attitudetastic paternity storyline back in July, it wasn't exactly worth 2K bending backwards to crowbar the perennially pregnant Kanellis into the game.
The trouble is that she's now become a somewhat regular presence on Monday nights, even winning the 24/7 championship during Raw's big reunion special. Funnily enough, Maria did actually appear in 2K19 - albeit in in 2008 guise. Would it be too much to simply add ten years to her outdated model and call it a day?