About a week ago, WWE announced that Sean "Puff Daddy" "Puffy" "P. Diddy" "Diddy" Combs would be appearing on tonight's Raw.
The collective response, both here at Fightful, and in the world at large, seemed to be along the lines of: oh.
It seemed to be kind of a random choice of celebrity to guest host Raw. But we now have more information and everything seems to be falling into place.
Combs will be an executive producer on the upcoming WWE 2K17 video game, and in charge of curating the soundtrack for this edition of the annual release.
So that whole Raw guest star thing, and the appearance being announced on RollingStone.com, seem decidedly less random now.
Via Billboard.com, Combs spoke (read: issued a press release) about continuing his partnership with WWE:
"I am a huge WWE fan. I love the intensity and the competition and I wanted fans to feel that energy in the soundtrack for WWE 2K17. While prepping for the upcoming Bad Boy 20-Year Family Reunion Tour, I’ve been thinking a lot about the past and the artists that inspired me. I mixed some of my favorites with some of the best new acts in the game today to create something really special."
Combs has been involved with WWE for a few years. He was a part of Tribute to the Troops in 2010, lent his talents to the theme song for Wrestlemania 29, "Coming Home" feat. Skylar Grey, and performed a set at the event as well. He even partnered with the WWE in their campaign against bullying, and the WWE, in turn, brought in an artist on Puffy's recording label, Machine Gun Kelly, to get bullied by Kevin Owens.
The circle of life.
This 2K17 venture marks a new chapter in the relationship between Combs and the WWE, which Diddy likens to "family":
Some things of note in the above video:
Diddy notes that the WWE Universe is very diverse, "so you have to give the people, you know, what they want, you know, and also what they need."
Combs is giving us what we need. And what we need consists of this partial track list:
- Action Bronson & Joey Bada$$ (feat. Rico Love) – “What About The Rest Of Us”
- Anderson .Paak – “Come Down”
- Andy Black – “We Don’t Have To Dance”
- Axwell Λ Ingrosso – “This Time”
- Black Sabbath – “Paranoid”
- Bring Me The Horizon – “Run”
- FIDLAR – “Drone”
- French Montana (feat. Kodak Black) – “Lockjaw”
- iSHi (feat. French Montana, Wale, & Raekwon) – “We Run”
- P. Diddy, Black Rob & Mark Curry – “Bad Boy For Life”
- Travis Barker & Yelawolf – “Out of Control”
- Twenty One Pilots – “Ride”
- Yellow Claw (feat. Lil Eddie) – “We Made It”
According to Diddy, when you want to get out of control, a good song to listen to is "Out of Control." Which, honestly, seems fitting.
And finally, in responding to the question "Who would win a rematch between Brock Lesnar and Goldberg?," Puff Daddy had this response:
"That would be hard. You know, they they they both two ... two, like, freaks of nature. I'd love to see that one. Let's make that happen."
Okay, Puff Daddy. Since you asked so nicely.
Those who pre-order WWE 2K17 will get Goldberg as a bonus downloadable character, and they can fantasy book a rematch between the two of them when the game is released on both Playstation and XBOX on October 11.
