Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has been quietly added as a playable character in WWE 2K26 with no official announcement — he just showed up in a new update today. The 68-year-old executive carries an in-game rating of 77, so don't expect him to be hoisting any title belts, but he does come with his own exclusive entrance music: Frank Sinatra's My Way, licensed specifically for Zelnick and unavailable for any other character in the game.
In real life, Zelnick is famously obsessed with fitness — he claims to work out 10 to 12 times a week, runs his own private workout club called The Program, and has written a wellness book, Becoming Ageless: The Four Secrets To Looking and Feeling Younger Than Ever. So the man approaching 70 is genuinely in shape, and that 77 rating might even be underselling him. Why he ended up in the game is anyone's guess. Zelnick has openly admitted he's not a gamer himself, so it's unlikely he lobbied for the spot. He has shown he's a good sport about the franchise before — he appeared in a goofy promotional video for WWE 2K's character creator — but this marks his first time as an actual in-game character.
Zelnick oversees Take-Two's entire portfolio, which includes Rockstar Games and 2K, putting him at the helm of some of the biggest games ever made. He's become something of a cult figure in gaming circles as the most reliable outside source of GTA 6 information — fans tune into investor calls and business interviews just to catch whatever breadcrumbs he drops. He recently talked up WWE 2K's growth potential too, saying the franchise could "double or triple the size that it is now" as long as Visual Concepts keeps delivering for players. "We believe that arrogance is the enemy of continued success," he added.
The gaming community is taking the whole thing in stride — it's not every day you get to body-slam your publisher's CEO. Neither Take-Two nor Visual Concepts has commented on why Zelnick was added, so for now the mystery stands.
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