With the recent announcement of 2K Games’ acquisition of the WWE video games license, speculation has been rife as to who would grace the cover of the studio’s first release, tentatively titled WWE 2K14.
Would it be newly-crowned WWE champion John Cena? Or perhaps with a fresh start to the series, they’d go with a fresh face, such as the World Heavyweight champion Dolph Ziggler?
Well, no. Over Wrestlemania weekend, the WWE’s executive vice president for creative, Stephanie McMahon, announced via Twitter that the cover star would be none other than "The Great One", Hollywood A-lister and 10-time world champion, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
The decision is a curious one. Although The Rock is undoubtedly one of the biggest draws in wrestling – past and present – rumours suggest that after suffering legitimate injuries in his Wrestlemania loss to John Cena, the 40-year-old may have stepped inside the squared circle for the last time.
With the game not expected until the end of the year, although the People’s Champion will always be relevant to wrestling fans, will he actually be an active member of the roster – or even appear on the WWE’s TV shows on a regular basis – come release day?
Cynicism aside, 2K14 will be the first game to feature The Rock as its sole cover athlete since 2001’s Just Bring It, and signs look promising as far as the game itself goes, as existing developer Yuke’s team up with 2K’s Visual Concepts in the production side of things; a studio renowned for its polished presentation of sports titles.