Kofi Kingston And Other WWE Superstars Share Favorite Gaming And Wrestlemania Moments

It was a long, wild ride during Wrestlemania week. Aside from the main event itself, GameSpot attended G1 Supercard, NXT Takeover, Raw After Mania, Axxess, DDT Pro, and Evolve shows. Needless to say, GameSpot's Wrestle Buddies Chris E. Hayner and Mat Elfring watched a lot of wrestling the past seven days. However, one of the most surprisingly fun events ended up being the WWE 2K19 Million Dollar Challenge, where contestant Stephen Benson won a million dollars after beating AJ Styles in the game at the Takeover preshow.

After all was said and done at the Million Dollar Challenge, GameSpot had the chance to talk to some of WWE's top talent backstage at Takeover. Seeing as it was Wrestlemania weekend, we asked the superstars about their favorite Mania moment as well as their favorite video gaming memory.

Make sure to check out our full coverage of the 2K event. Spoiler alert: It's the most fun I've had at a video game tournament ever, probably because I got to see the New Day up close and personal.

"My favorite [game] was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. So, I could never beat this game," Woods explained to GameSpot before going into the most touching story of the afternoon. "And like, I guess like 9, or 10 maybe. I was living in an apartment with my sister and my parents in Dunwoody, Georgia. I finally get to the boss. I finally make it to the space station, and I pause the game and I run out into the living room like, 'I'm at the end! I'm at the end of Sonic!'

"They all run in the room, and I sit down. I hit start, and I start playing. And they're cheering, you know? Like, 'Oh come on! Come on!' Got three lives left. I die once. I die twice. Last life, they're cheering me, and my dad's hitting me, hyping me up. At this point, I'm still super socially awkward. Big, thick Coke bottle glasses. Like, I would wear my little polo button all the way up to the top. I go to school with comic books. I can't talk to people.

"Which I still pretty much am--I just got Lasik. So I finally get hit one time, and then I lose all my rings. I get one ring back. I'm still fighting. I get hit again. I got no rings left. Finally hit him for the last time, and he blows up. And my parents and my sister lost their minds. They're screaming. They're hoisting me up in the air like on their shoulders and stuff. And like, that legit is the best memory I've ever had of any video games, cause it--this is gonna get emotional.

"It's weird whenever I talk about this because it meant so many different things to me. For one, it was like, video games were my happy place. It was my safe zone. I could be anybody in a video game. I could be a hedgehog. I could be Tails. Eventually, I could be Knuckles. I could be whatever in these video games. But when my parents came in, and they saw something that I enjoyed. And they supported me doing that. And it was for lack of a better term, it was like meaningless.

"I'm not out there like catching footballs, or scoring goals in soccer. I'm playing video games. But they said, 'This is what you enjoy. This is what we're gonna support. Cause this is you. This is you in your most authentic phase of life. Child doing what a child wants to do.' So that just solidified like my parents love me.

"Family's important. Loyalty is important, but I got all those lessons in that one moment because of video games. So that's why I'm so adamant about kids playing video games, to a certain extent. All things in moderation obviously. Get outside sometimes. But then sit down and mash out Red Dead, you know?"

"My favorite Wrestlemania moment would be when we came out of the Booty-O's box [at Wrestlemania 32], Woods said. "And wearing the Sayan armor. Those mashups of two completely opposite things that... They're not even opposite. They're just not even in the same realm of anything. But it was like, to me, we finally made it, and we're starting to make a change in wrestling.

"Like ridiculous things like this are now acceptable in this realm, where things like that used to not be. There was a certain ceiling, and I feel like we broke through it with that. We made our own cereal, and that doesn't make any sense. And we just kind of willed it into existence cause we saw somebody with a sign of us on a Wheaties box.

"'Oh, we should have a cereal.' And like logic goes, 'oh, it should be called Booty-O's.' And they're like, 'What do you wanna do for your entrance?' So our actual entrance we wanted to is have a unicorn van. And have it back down the runway, but the doors are huge butt cheeks that jiggle as it drives. When you open the doors, we come out on unicorn tricycles.

"We pitched that to Triple H and he goes, 'That would be cool. And we can do that. Or you can come out of a giant box of Booty-O's.' I was like, 'Oh well... well, of course! We didn't know that was an option!'

"Right now, 'cause I have a UFC 3 right now, that's my obsession," Big E told GameSpot. "I've been playing a lot of that and NBA 2K, but one of my earlier ones. I remember Game Boy, and for some reason, I loved the Wario game on Game Boy. And I played the Jurassic Park game a lot on Game Boy as well. So some of my earlier ones. But yeah, right now, my obsession is UFC 3. I can't stop.

"I remember playing Tecmo Bowl as a kid and loving it. And then trying to go back recently and play like older versions of Tecmo Bowl, and no! It's not fun now. Remember when Game Gear came out, and how like, 'Oh it's Game Gear! This blows away Game Boy!" And now, like take a look at this. What is this?

"I always think of like us coming out of the Booty-Os Box," Big E continued. "That Wrestlemania [32] is our culmination, but I would say the most rewarding one, it seems weird to say, was the one that we hosted [Wrestlemania 33], because it was so different and so unique. I know Alexa is hosting this year, but at the time, it felt like no active talent had ever hosted Wrestlemania, and for us to be a part of the Hardy's moment, like, just anytime we talk about it, just kind of get chills.

"Because of the reaction. And, you know, so many things get spoiled in this day and age, but the fact that like people were so surprised, I think if they worked a show, an indie show like the day before or maybe the day of, something like very close to [Wrestlemania], so no one thought they were coming over. And then when people lost their minds for that, that was incredible. So it's weird say a non-wrestling moment for us but hosting Wrestlemania is pretty incredible. But there's no doubt in my mind that after Sunday, that WrestleMania 35, what Kofi's about to do, will clearly be our biggest, 'cause that, like just think about the reaction, knowing what it's going to be, like that hands down is going to be the done."

"I've been involved with video games for so long," Kingston told GameSpot. "We were just playing Tetris yesterday, or I wasn't playing, I didn't make it that far in the tournament, but on the UpUpDownDown on livestream for the UpUpDownDown Championship. They played Tetris in the finals, and I had a lot of nostalgia about Tetris. We used to play, back on Game Boy, like, way, way back. And then I remember when it came out on Game Boy Color, it was huge. Obviously the same game, but it was in color, so it just felt like it was so much better. I love a good game of Tetris.

So playing [the newer Mortal Kombat games] now, and then going back and playing [the first one] and seeing like how grainy everything was, is like, how did this look like cutting edge technology? It's crazy. And then even going back to the game play, it's so robotic and not nearly as smooth. It's come such a long way and it's one of those things where you watch your kids grow up and you realize well they're all grown up, you know? The video game industry has come so far in technology.

"[For wrestling games,] WCW Versus NWO: World Tour and Revenge. All of those games were great. I remember it being stepped up the game, and then that's another game where the technology, like the faces are all grainy and they're all the same, and at the time, you thought that was awesome. You were able to see the actual face of a WWE superstar on the character. So those, to me, are the best ones. I love the way that our game has gotten so realistic.

But the simplicity of a game like WCW vs. NWO Revenge, playing it last night, it still holds up, and it's still fun. There's something to be said about the simplicity of those games, and just being to do your finisher by hitting like one button. It's cool, you know what I mean?

"See, I'm superstitious, I don't count chickens before they hatch, so I can't get into Wrestlemania 35 just yet," Kingston explained. But I was going to say hosting [Mania 33], and especially getting like the information about the Hardys before everybody knew, but it wasn't that much longer before. It was probably like maybe like an hour before, you know, so everyone being like interested to run the show is awesome. Wrestlemania, it just speaks volumes for like how far we have come as a group, you know.

"From what we started as--the first Wrestlemania that we had--we were like just in a fatal four-way match, and it was a great like step for us to be on Wrestlemania, but then two years later, to be actually like hosting it is awesome. And then again, like to be like sitting on that knowledge that nobody with 80,000 people in the arena, millions at home watching had no idea, except for like maybe like 10 people, was great to be in that inner circle. It was really kind of just like powerful stuff, so yeah, I'm on the same page with [Big] E as far as like that being our best Wrestlemania moment, and most rewarding for sure, just being able to host."

"My oldest memory in the video game world is just playing with my family, to be honest with you," Moon explained to GameSpot. "NFL Blitz, even No Mercy. Going back and forth with my dad and his brother. They just go into this video game system war, 'Oh we got this, oh we got this, oh we got this.' So video games have just been a part of my life since very early on in my childhood, but it mostly just brings memories of hanging with my family."

"So as a kid, we were never able to afford the WWE Pay-Per-Views," Moon said. "It was either food on the table, or I saved up enough money, but then there were extra taxes and secret charges after that. So my favorite Wrestlemania memory has to be the very first Wrestlemania that I saw in my adult life, where it was Shawn [Michaels] versus [Ric] Flair [at Wrestlemania XXIV].

"And I just remember, [the moment where Michaels says to Flair] 'I'm sorry, I love you,' will resonate through my heart forever. But also, you have Taker and Shawn, and Taker has a big influence on everything I like. You had Taker and Brock, which that was the bell heard 'round the world, or at least the sobs heard 'round the world after that. Yeah, there are so many Wrestlemania memories, but I think the very first one I got to sit on my couch and watch with friends and family was the one with Shawn and Ric."

"I go over to friend's house," Styles told GameSpot at the 2K event. "He's got the Nintendo. I'm beggin' my parents for the Nintendo for my birthday. I knew it wasn't gonna happen, 'cause we were dirt poor. We go in this department store, and on layaway, apparently was where you pick up the stuff, and I said to my mom as the Nintendo Entertainment System is standing there. I say, 'Oh, who's is that?' Because I knew it wasn't mine, so I was just joking around, and she goes, 'It's yours.'

"And I about passed out. I started turning colors, she's like, 'Are you okay?' It blew me away. It changed my life. I don't know how to explain it. I would play the same game, Super Mario Brothers, over and over again. Then you get games at the rental stores. I would keep past due, just to see if I could beat the game in a certain amount of time."

"If I'm being selfish, one of my favorite matches is with Shane MacMahon," Styles continued. "It sounds crazy that it was one of those matches where I knew I had something special with what Shane and I were doing. But nobody gave us that much credit to have a great match. But knowing how big of a perfectionist Shane McMahon is, I knew it was gonna be great. So that is definitely one of my favorite matches in Wrestlemania because it was my own, and I knew it was about to come. I knew what to expect, but no one else did."