Tessa Blanchard made significant waves in the professional wrestling community earlier this year when she defeated Sami Callihan to win the Impact Wrestling World Championship, becoming the first woman in history to do so. Blanchard then made additional headlines for her unceremonious departure from Impact Wrestling, at which point she was stripped of the championship and her contract was terminated. And now Blanchard is in the news yet again, as her likeness has been found inWWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Blanchard has wrestled for the WWE in the past on its NXT brand, but has not had a contract with the company, so her likeness appearing inWWE 2K Battlegroundsis strange. It shows up on the page that explains theRoyal Rumble match rules, with what appears to be a drawing of Blanchard’s victory pose from theHard to Killpay-per-view where she first won the Impact Wrestling World Championship.
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The photo of Blanchard used to create the image was originally taken by Impact Wrestling photographer Basil Mahmud, who called out the developers on Twitter. Mahmud then quickly updated fans on the situation, explaining that the image ofTessa Blanchardwill be removed in the nextWWE 2K Battlegroundspatch.
Some fans on Twitter took this situation as a sign that WWE may be looking to sign Tessa Blanchard to a contract soon, and that the company was going to add her toWWE 2K Battlegroundsas DLC.WWE 2K Battlegrounds' rosteris indeed set to grow exponentially in the weeks and months ahead, but since Tessa Blanchard is not under contract to WWE, no one really expects her to make the cut. The most likely scenario is that this was just a mistake on the part of the development team, and so fans shouldn’t take this as an indication that Tessa Blanchard will be appearing in the WWE anytime soon.
While fans shouldn’t expect to play as Tessa Blanchard inWWE 2K Battlegrounds, there are plenty of other top female wrestlers in the game. This includes some of WWE’s top stars, like Asuka,Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, and even Ronda Rousey, who hasn’t appeared on WWE TV since last year’s WrestleMania event.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen how fans will react toWWE 2K Battlegrounds. The game doesn’t have any critic reviews at the time of this writing, but it faced significant backlash online. After the incredibly poor reception toWWE 2K20last year, it seems as though fans may be losing faith in theWWE 2Kbrand, so hopefully Visual Concepts can bounce back with next year’s entry.
WWE 2K Battlegroundsis available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
