Strauss Zelnick Really Needs To Learn How To Read The Room

This actually happened. As part of the Ringside Pass Season 3 content drop on Wednesday, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick was quietly added to WWE 2K26 as a fully playable character. He wasn't mentioned in the official Ringside Report blog post. He's not in the Season 3 marketing materials. He just showed up in the roster, with a 77 OVR rating, his own custom entrance animation, dedicated commentary lines from Michael Cole and Wade Barrett, and Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as his exclusive entrance theme that no other Superstar in the game can use - and we're all just here feeling flabbergasted by the absurdity of it all.

Strauss Zelnick's 77 OVR Is Too High - Higher Than Even Eric Bischoff

Zelnick's 77 OVR places him above a list of legitimate wrestlers and legends that includes Retro CM Punk, 1997 Eddie Guerrero, Johnny Gargano, Syxx, and others. Eddie Guerrero - a Hall of Famer, one of the most beloved wrestlers in the history of the company, considered by many fans to be one of the all-time greats - has a version who is rated lower than the CEO of Take-Two. Whatever the formula for a 77 OVR was supposed to capture about Strauss Zelnick, the result reads as deeply tone-deaf to the broader community of wrestling fans who pay $70 to play this game.

"My Way" Comes with a Price Tag

Frank Sinatra's "My Way" isn't a cheap song to license. Sinatra estate music rights are some of the most expensive in the industry, and Zelnick's theme is exclusive to him. This means every other player on the roster, every Created Superstar, every entrance in the entire game cannot use that song, just like any other licensed song that finds itself in the game's soundtrack. The community has been pointing this out: the money spent licensing one song for one CEO cameo is money that could have gone toward fixing any number of issues that have plagued the game since launch. There's no transparency on the licensing cost, but Sinatra licensing typically runs into six figures for video game use, sometimes substantially higher, and that's money that could have been better spent paying quality testers to weed out this game's countless bugs.

And yes, choosing "My Way" when fans are criticizing you for doing a bad job in handling video game franchises comes across as tone deaf.

Talk About Bad Timing

The Zelnick addition wouldn't land the same way if WWE 2K26 were in good standing with its community. It isn't. Our review at launch flagged that baffling changes were eclipsing the good, particularly around how the new Ringside Pass system locked wrestlers behind a paywall that, in previous WWE 2K games, would have been included or available through more straightforward DLC. MyFACTION has been criticized throughout the year for monetization issues. The first Patch 1.07 had to deliver an emergency restructure of the Ringside Pass after community backlash about wrestlers being locked behind 40+ tier grinds. Visual Concepts has been actively listening and patching, but the structural choices that put the game's revenue model ahead of its players continue to surface.

Into this environment, the CEO of the parent publishing company quietly inserts himself as a playable character with a higher rating than several Hall of Famers and a paid-for exclusive theme song. The timing isn't just unfortunate. It almost feels like Zelnick did this to stick it up to the fans, telling them that they're suckers who would continue buying whatever crap they produce and he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.

The Irony of Zelnick's Recent IGN Comments

What makes this even more pointed is what Zelnick himself said in an IGN interview just weeks ago. Speaking about the WWE 2K series, he said: "We're very proud of the Metacritic score, we're proud of how the title performed. We have great partners at TKO led by Nick Khan, and of course everything in our business is about continuous improvement. There are ongoing opportunities to improve the quality of the game. I do think that we can give consumers more of what they want. And I know our team at Visual Concepts always wants to do better. We're never in the business of patting ourselves on the back. We believe that arrogance is the enemy of continued success."

As they say, arrogance is the enemy of continued success. The CEO who said those words then added himself to the game as a playable character with a 77 OVR and a Frank Sinatra theme. If that's what he thinks passes for improvement, then there definitely is a disconnect between him and fans.

The Community Response

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has been added to the game as a playable character.



What's going on exactly?#WWE2K26pic.twitter.com/g8x2xF7Y6T

— SmackDown Hotel (@TheSDHotel) June 3, 2026

Social media reaction has been almost universally critical or sarcastic. Reddit threads are circulating screenshots of Zelnick's stats and comments highlighting how absurdly high his 77 OVR is. X is full of variations on "what is going on exactly," to quote the most-shared SmackDown Hotel post. Even outlets that have been broadly supportive of WWE 2K26 throughout its life cycle are framing this as an inexplicable, tone-deaf addition. Our friends over at VGC, Dexerto, Kotaku, and Yahoo Tech have all run pieces with skeptical or critical takes about this matter.

To be clear: a CEO cameo in a sports game isn't inherently outrageous. Sports games have included celebrities, owners, and executives for years, even in previous WWE games. But there's a specific way these things work. Usually, these gimmicks are tied to a charity tie-in, a self-aware Easter egg, or at minimum a rating that signals "I'm not actually a wrestler." A 77 OVR with a Sinatra theme and dedicated commentary lines doesn't read as self-aware. It reads as the executive who controls the budget deciding that the budget should be spent on making himself a wrestler.

The Bottom Line

WWE 2K26 has had a difficult year of trying to convince its community that the Ringside Pass model is good for them. Season 3 launched yesterday with genuinely cool additions: Brian Pillman, Torrie Wilson, La Parka, Matt Cardona, plus Kane '01 and Rey Mysterio Jr. '01 as Personas. The Island Chapter 2 expansion is a meaningful step for that game mode. Visual Concepts deserves credit for the work it does keep doing on this game. But the Zelnick addition undercuts all of it. This act of hubris is turning what should have been a celebration of the Season 3 content drop into a referendum on whether 2K's leadership actually understands its own players.

Strauss Zelnick is now playable in WWE 2K26. You can fight him with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. You can throw him off Hell in a Cell with The Undertaker. You can pin him with Cody Rhodes after giving him three consecutive Cross Rhodes. That part is admittedly funny, to the point that some players are saying they're turning him into their new Eric Bischoff.

Now, I can't wait for Danhausen to arrive in the game so I can use him to Curse Zelnick in-game.

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This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 4:29 PM.