Xavier Woods discusses G4's shutdown and applies the same advice wrestlers use when people get released.
On October 16, Comcast announced that G4 was shutting down, less than a year after it returned. As a result, series like "Xplay" abruptly ended. Woods, a passionate fan of video games, was involved as the host of the popular "Arena" series alongside Gina Darling, among other roles. The content creators, much like everyone else, found out about G4's shutdown on Twitter, as the news leaked to Variety before Comcast would issue an official statement.
Speaking on The Completionist's Twitch stream, Woods discussed the situation and wondered why Comcast couldn't let the team know directly.
"I just don’t understand why they couldn’t tell anybody and just say hey, we’re gonna make an announcement. Don’t say anything. This is what’s going on. Like we found out on Twitter? Come on. I’m sorry guys this sucks," he said.
Woods continued by bringing up the way people get released in the wrestling world. He described how they use it as motivation to show the world what they can do. He also expressed his gratitude for his experience with G4 and stated that he's glad he got to meet everyone involved.
"This is something we always say whenever people get released in wrestling. So now it’s time to show everyone who’s watching that this shit didn’t happen because of us, and it’s not going out and saying that. It’s going out and doing that and just being everywhere and involved in everything. G4 is great. I’m so glad that we got to be part of Attack and explain all these awesome shows, but they hired us because we as a group are good at this shit. This is a setback in the sense of like now people are talking that this network went under, but we’re all about to kill it. We’re all about to murder it," Woods said.
The WWE star also stated that working for G4 was the highlight of his week, and it was a dream come true. He emphasized that the relationships the team made were what really mattered, and he's confident everyone will be okay.
"It was the highlight of my week getting to come out there and do all this stuff with you guys. This is literally a dream come true to be able to do this. Like I said, it sucks that it’s gone for whatever reasons that will not be explained to us ever, most likely. But at the same time, they gave us a chance to get to know each other and get close and get connected. That’s the most important thing that we’re doing, you know, so we’re gonna be okay," Woods said.
Woods also recalled how he found out that G4 would be shutting down. He described how he was on a plane and checked his phone. He noted that he wanted to scream and cry, but instead he had to sit in his seat and stew.
“I was talking to somebody on the flight, and we exchanged socials. They typed mine in and it came up. I was like, how are you on socials? Normally on WiFi, on the plane, you can only use it to use iMessage or WhatsApp. They’re like, oh with American Airlines’ WiFi, you can get on everything. I was like oh, dope. I’ll get in, and we’ll exchange socials proper. But as I open up Twitter, I see a bunch of texts coming through, like my texts are going insane, my Twitter’s going insane. I said what happened? Then I see, oh, G4 doesn’t exist anymore. It’s like cool, I got three more hours on this flight, and I wanna scream and cry and throw and break things. But I have to sit in my seat and wait and stew," he said.
The crew that produced "Arena" reportedly quit last week. More information is available here.
Catch up on results from around the wrestling world using Fightful's results section.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
