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Because, really, what's better than wrestling and video games?

Are you a devoted wrestling fan? And by “devoted,” I mean that you watch numerous wrestling shows each and every week—SmackDown!, Raw, Main Event, pay-per-views, etc.—no matter whether you find yourself cheering in excitement or screaming in frustration at your television.

Even if you are a devoted wrestling fan, you may have recently found yourself falling more into that latter category than the former. The current WWE roster is pretty fucking solid right now, but—as I outlined in this post a couple of months ago—it’s filled with a lot of underutilized talent. One of the people at the top of my list of underutilized wrestlers is Xavier Woods (AKA Austin Creed, AKA Austin Watson) who is currently a member of Tag Team Champions The New Day.

The New Day debuted last July... and was pretty much universally hated almost instantly. I admit, at the time, I was one of those haters, but since then The New Day has become one of the most—if not the most—entertaining aspects of WWE. Much of this is thanks to Woods, who consistently entertains the crowd with hilariously ridiculous one-liners... and his fabulous trombone playing.

The trombone shtick is new, but it’s one Woods has been using to its full potential. On Raw this past Monday, Woods—who is known for being a huge gaming nerd—used his trombone to pay homage to Final Fantasy.

Woods is such an enormous super fan of video games that he started up his own YouTube channel—UpUpDownDown—where he uses the inherently competitive nature of human beings to lift the curtain on the wrestling industry and the real-life personalities that populate it.

To be read: He pits wrestling buddies against each other as they compete for video gaming glory.

I believe that Woods’ YouTube channel is far more entertaining than the majority of what’s going on in the very industry that gave birth to his career. Here are five examples to prove my theory.

Rusev Is Human!

In the WWE universe, Rusev is a hulking Bulgarian (with an allegiance to Mother Russia) who says little and shows even less emotion in the ring. But on UpUpDownDown, Rusev (AKA his gamer name Tong Po) is just a normal guy who plays Street Fighter IV against his good friends—in this instance, Jimmy Uso (AKA Uce)—as he attempts to gain some serious gamer cred.

Seth Rollins Has Turtle Power!

WWE Champion Seth Rollins was born in 1986. Five years later, in 1991, Konami released the video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time in arcades all across America. Nearly 25 years after that momentous occasion, Rollins would play Xavier Woods in a game to the death! Okay, maybe not to the death, but it’s still a pretty damn entertaining matchup. And it features a cameo from the World’s Strongest Man! No, not Bebop or Rocksteady, but Mark Henry.

Slater Gets Chopped!

Losing a match in the ring is one thing, but losing a video game matchup on UpUpDownDown is another. When Heath Slater (AKA Mr. Miller) loses to Jimmy Uso while playing WWE 2K15 (which, in my opinion, is both hurtful and embarrassing at the same time), he pays for it in pull-ups and chest chops. This is the way gaming (and wrestling) should be: ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek and humiliating as all hell!

Ping-Pong & Hot Sauce!

Not everything on UpUpDownDown focuses on video games. In fact, the channel’s most entertaining video is a five-man ping-pong tournament between Woods, Mikaze, Neville, Kalisto, and Jimmy Uso. (Also keep an eye out for cameos from Big E Langston and Bo Dallas, among others.) The loser ends up eating a spoonful of Flash Bang Hot Sauce (a sauce so hot that it comes in a container shaped like a fucking hand grenade), and the winner gets to feed it to him! I’d rather watch that than another Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar match any day of the week!

Punishment = Cinnamon!

Humiliating punishment for losing a game is a reoccurring theme at UpUpDownDown. You’ve already seen chest chopping and hot sauce chugging, but you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve watched Mikaze choke his way through the cinnamon challenge after losing a Mortal Kombat X tournament to Woods. I’m telling you, folks, this is what wrestling needs more of: CINNAMON!

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