Who’s hotta than Top Dolla? According to the man himself, when it comes to playing FIFA, Not nada!
There is a huge cross-section when it comes to the world of professional wrestling and video games. While it has become almost a cliche criticism of today's wrestlers, many enjoy playing video games in their spare time and everybody has their game of choice. For AJ “Top Dolla” Francis, his game of choice is FIFA and he tells Sean Ross Sapp that when it came to other Superstars in WWE, nobody wanted to play against him in FIFA
“Nobody in WWE wanted to play me at FIFA,” AJ said. “Everybody was scared money. Everybody was scared money. Because they seen the highlights that I post and they were all scared money. They were all scared money ‘cause I was on UpUpDownDown once. When I was on UpUpDownDown, they realized I was a real gamer ‘cause they had me on to play Mario Kart, and I [skunked] everybody. It was Switch.”
AJ Francis says that he always prefers the latest generation of video games and believe that new is always better but understands that others like to be nostalgic.
“I get it, people love to be nostalgic. ‘Oh, well, the N64 one was better!’ Whatever is the newest one to come out is better and it’s not close. But if you want to live in 1997, be my guest,” He said.
Switching to wrestling video games, Francis said that while he no longer plays wrestling video games and prefers to stick to FIFA, he knows that wrestling fans like to be nostalgic when it comes to their video games as well.
“People do the same thing with wrestling video games, too. I don’t really play wrestling video games. I played them when I was a kid, but the older I got, I stopped playing wrestling video games even though obviously I was still addicted to wrestling," he said. “It’s just, to me, FIFA is closer to a real soccer game than a wrestling video game is to wrestling.”
Talking about this year's new release, he says that while he is not in the game, he is very happy for his fellow Hit Row member, Swerve Strickland for getting a spot in WWE 2K22 and getting a paycheck
“Some people do like it. They love it. To me—and I might be wrong on this one—I heard in this new WWE 2K that you have to lock up to do a move and they took it way back with that. I was like, ‘Okay, well, you know,’" he said. “I played 2K20 for like a week and a half and then I was like, ‘I’m over this.’ I hope that the new one is better. I’m happy for Swerve getting his check.”
AJ also reveals that Hit Row was close to an opportunity to be scanned for future video games but it never came to be. While he was never in WWE 2K, he does take pride in the fact that he was in six Madden games.
“I’m not in it. They got rid of us before they could,” said AJ. “The opportunity to get scanned was on the way, but it never came to fruition. I wanted to be in the game, obviously. Who doesn’t want to be in the game and get a free check? I’m fully content with the fact I wasn’t in WWE 2K, but I was in Madden six times. I’ll take it.”
Talking about his overall in the Madden games, he says the highest he ever got to was a 70 and that is because he went undrafted and they “pretend undrafted players are not good.”
“The highest [overall] I ever was was a 70 because I was undrafted. So they just pretend undrafted players are not good. The thing was I was always really secure in myself with the game itself. Because when I was rated a 70, that year I was on the now Washington Commanders. We played the Dallas Cowboys the Thursday after Thanksgiving. They have three pro bowlers on that [old line] and I dogged all three of them. So clearly I’m rated higher than a 70, okay?”
Learn more about conversations that WWE has had with EA Games regarding the potential future of the WWE franchise at this link.
