Xavier Woods' YouTube gaming channel UpUpDownDown is thriving with over two million subs and new content every week. The channel features a host of WWE superstars as they sit down and play video games with Woods while out of character.
But the channel may have never happened if Xavier landed a show on WWE Network.
“So I actually didn’t want to create a YouTube channel,” Xavier told ESportsObserver. “I had zero intentions of doing that – it wasn’t even like a thought on the radar. I wanted to create a show that was like a Travel Channel-type show [where] you go to different cities and try different things…because as we were traveling for WWE what I would do most nights is find an arcade bar in whatever town we were in, go check it out, play the games, you know, play with people.”
Xavier said WWE rejected the idea, but were thinking of creating more YouTube content that featured WWE superstars. This led to Xavier entering negotiations with "someone from the office" about UpUpDownDown. The negotiations took a year according to Xavier because he wanted superstars on his channel to not be in character.
“It’s one of those industries that people have a lot of questions about and we never really want to ruin the magic, we want people to still have their child-like awe when they see the show. And from my end I really wanted to make sure that everyone was able to be their genuine selves in this space so we don’t have to worry about good and bad guys, and what happened last week on RAW, SmackDown, and NXT. Someplace where we can all enjoy video games and talk about our experiences with them and just have fun," he said.
UpUpDownDown officially launched on March 18, 2015 and the rest is history.
Woods, who is currently sidelined with an Achilles injury, recently went viral thanks to his video game explorations. And all he had to do was turn on his Xbox. You can find the viral clip by clicking here.
