What’s hard to do but everyone thinks they could do it better? There are a lot of correct answers to that, but in pro wrestling, booking shows is the best response. It’s difficult to lead any wrestling promotion or brand to financial profitability and public adoration, yet almost every fan engages in armchair booking all the time. That very fantasy is at the heart of WWE 2K23’s MyGM mode, which would feel shallow if it was its own title but is fine as part of a larger wrestling game.
True to … well, the actual WWE, MyGM doesn’t acknowledge the existence of outside wrestling promotions. The competition is strictly internal, as you take the role of a general manager for one of WWE’s internal brands — Raw, SmckDown, NXT, and new for this year, NXT 2.0 and WCW — and try to lead it to higher ratings and more money than the others.
Your competition can be any mix of one to three human or AI opponents. The range of GMs has also been expanded in WWE 2K23, allowing you to use Adam Pearce, Sonya Deville, Stephanie McMahon (famously no longer with WWE in the real world), Xavier Woods, Tyler Breeze, Kurt Angle, Eric Bischoff, Mick Foley or your own custom superstar as your personal proxy.
Each GM and each brand has its own special ability, so there are legit reasons for picking specific ones other than personal preference. There are a number of setting you can modify ahead of the start of a new MyGM session, including the AI and game difficulty, opening budgets for each brand, the draft order and draft pool (so you can include created wrestlers if you so desire).
Knowing (your foes) is half the battle
A MyGM season consists of 25 weeks, most of which include your brand’s weekly TV show with regularly interspersed premium live events. Your main task each week is to book each show, consisting of several matches and several optional promo segments; there are more of both for PLEs.
There’s a lot to balance to put on the best show, including the stamina and morale of your wrestlers, the cost of each match – those Hell in a Cell bouts aren’t cheap, you know — and which performers work best with others. You’ll also occasionally end up making promises you need to fulfill within a certain time, with potentially disastrous effects on morale if you aren’t true to your word.
To achieve the best possible ratings and make the most money, you also have to lay out your show with the best rhythm: a good opener, slightly less compelling midcard bouts, and then a superior main event. Ideally, they’re all as good as they can be, but arranging things properly takes some time to master.
You’re not doing this in a vacuum either, so keeping tabs on what the competition is doing is critical. It’s also very possible to upset the other GMs’ best laid plans thanks to power cards, which have temporary effects that can be detrimental to their shows or beneficial to your own. AI GMs can play them back on you too, however.
Some trash talking tends to occur when power cards are played, and though your dialogue options are limited, it’s still a fun little detail.
In it for the long haul
Even in a single calendar year, MyGM would be entertaining, but the ability to extend things into multiple seasons and have your GM chase Hall of Fame status promises to add some extra heft to this mode. While a new draft each season shuffles the deck, there are tools at your disposal to keep wrestlers around if you want, almost like a keeper draft in fantasy football.
The question is whether playing through multiple seasons has enough hooks to keep you engaged over time. WWE 2K23 has introduced Shake Ups that occur on a regular basis to keep you on your toes, but they’re not the kinds of things that would warrant that definition in real life — like a sale of WWE or the acquisition of WCW, for example.
And while My GM has added new match types to your list of weekly options, it’s not like those change over time either. Online fans have suggested that to make WCW feel authentic, it would have been sweet to use some of the real world pay-per-view names in the mode. Or maybe premium live events could simply shuffle in and out as you advance through seasons, which is something WWE does with its IRL schedule.
Still, maybe that’s expecting a bit too much from a booking sim that is only one part of a wrestling game that’s trying to offer as many different ways to play as possible. MyGM has definitely stepped it up a bit from last year, with more ways to show us all exactly why fantasy booking is usually exactly that.
Check out our full review for more of what WWE 2K23 has to offer.
Disclosure: Wrestling Junkie was provided with a complimentary copy of the WWE 2K23 Icon Edition for PS4 and PS5 for the purposes of this review.