G4 welcomes The Titan Games commentator Alex 'Goldenboy' Mendez

NBCUniversal’s G4 brand is making a comeback, and it’s just made a big splash in the talent pool by hiring Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez—a familiar face TV audiences will know from NBC’s The Titan Games and Turner Sports’ ELEAGUE brand, among others.

TV fans know that G4 was on the cutting edge of gaming and technology television from 2002 to 2014, with can’t-miss programs like Attack of the Show and top personalities like Olivia Munn. In 2021, G4 is back with a vengeance, and with more great talent like Goldenboy.

This weekend Alex will join WWE’s UpUpDownDown WrestleMania Gaming Event, where real wrestlers square off in gaming competition, and that’s just the start of what he’s looking forward to with G4. Hidden Remote had the opportunity to chat with him beforehand and talk about what TV viewers have to get excited about.

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Hidden Remote: Since NBC and G4 are sister networks, did your involvement with The Titan Games lead to you joining the G4 team?

Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez: I don’t know. I really wish I could tell you. I like to believe that I live my life in a process of continuing to trick everyone that I’m good at my job, and then once they all get bamboozled, I take all their money and run away. (laughs) I’m kidding.

Honestly, what I think what it was is just like paths crossed. I’m familiar with some of the crew that were working in G4. Blair Herter and I, we go way back. I’m almost certain he thought, hey, can we bring someone on board that I’ve worked with before? I ended up being one of the names on the list. It worked out because this is a dream come true for me.

HR: You have a busy weekend ahead of you with the UpUpDownDown event. For TV fans who don’t know gaming, what’s going on and why should they watch on YouTube?

AM: There’re a bunch of things going on this weekend. Not only do we have WrestleMania, which is the biggest wrestling event of the year, bar none, and it’s been like that for years and years. But I was also invited by WWE superstar Xavier Woods to partake in UpUpDownDown Mania. He has an awesome YouTube channel called UpUpDownDown, and it’s a gaming channel where a whole bunch of professional wrestlers get together, play games, have a good time.

They have their huge mania event that’s going on this weekend in conjunction with WrestleMania. Not only are they going to be defending belts in the squared circle, but they’re also doing it in the digital squared circle as well, and rivalries form. It’s always a good time and it was just a pleasure to be a part of it.

Basically what this is, is an awesome gaming event by professional wrestlers who love video games. They decided to just beat the crap out of each other in video games for the entertainment of WWE fans, and really just any fan of gaming in general, because it’s such a relatable thing to just yell at your friends while you’re playing video games.

HR: This is an important event, too, in the sense that it shows how gaming has become a more prominent part of the TV and entertainment landscape.

AM: These guys, they’ve been gamers their whole lives. Adam Cole is an avid fan of Halo. Xavier Woods has been playing fighting games since the womb, I’m pretty sure. Shayna Baszler as well, Mia Yim…all these incredible professional wrestlers, they’ve been gaming for so long, and it just continues to show the lasting impact that video games have not just on our world and the gaming world but also in the mainstream. How it’s really gotten into all facets of life because playing games is awesome.

I think that’s one of the reasons why G4 is in a great position to be able to not only bring new folks in but those folks that loved G4 back in the day, bring them back into the fold. It’s all just in good fun.

HR: You were a fan of G4 and now you’re working for them. What was it about this brand and this TV channel that made it so special for you?

AM: G4 for me was my childhood. It was such a big part of my daily content consumption, which I think is so ironic that not only is this going to be something tied with G4, but it’s also something tied with WWE. That was my childhood. I would come home, I would watch Attack of the Show!, I’d watch X-Play, and then I’d watch Monday Night Raw. It was a huge part of my life.

What G4 was is the hub of gamers. On TV, whenever you see all of these cheesy gaming ads where the guy is sitting on the sofa with a controller that’s not connected to the console moving around like a crazy person, you’re like that’s not how people play games, and G4 understood that. But not only did they focus on the games or the amazing reviews from Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, but they also had awesome content on Attack of the Show! with Kevin Pereira, and a suite of other shows as well. I think it just was a program and it was a network that spoke to gamers in a way that they weren’t being spoken to at that moment.

Now, it is uniquely positioned. Its content has really blown up, whether it be on YouTube or Twitch or Facebook or Twitter, TikTok. Content is all over the place now, and there’s really no one else that does it better than G4 in my opinion with the comedy, the knowledge, the inside scoop. It’s all there.

HR: The timing of this relaunch feels incredibly relevant. Not only have people just spent a year inside doing a lot more gaming, but there’s not a TV brand that’s a clear leader in gaming. You also worked with Turner Sports on ELEAGUE, so as both a professional and a fan, do you think this is filling a void?

AM: This is a great time for something like G4 to come up, because everyone’s like, we want to be the ESPN or whatever of esports. That really never worked, because when you try and push a product like that to the esports masses, they’re not going to embrace it in such a way right out of the gate. Gamers have so many different tastes, whether it’s the League of Legends fan or the DOTA fan. Maybe there’s some cross-pollination there, but then what about the person who plays Counter-Strike or Call of Duty or Halo? There really are just so many different pockets of gaming and it’s hard to speak to each and every one of them.

But if there’s one thing that everyone can relate to, it’s comedy, it’s laughter, it’s fun. That’s something that G4 represents. It’s always represented that. If we want to put on a suit and tie and tell you the news, we definitely can, or we can give you The Bleep Esports Show which gives you the news, but also gives you a few lighthearted jokes along the way. I think that’s something that’s been sorely lacking from esports, and G4 is in a brilliant position because not only do we have exquisite talent, but we also have amazing writers that cover all the bases of esports and gaming. So it’s really just a perfect recipe for success.

HR: You’ve worked on broadcast TV with The Titan Games, on cable TV with ELEAGUE, and of course digitally all over the place. Where does this next role rank in your career?

AM: I’m very pleased to be able to join the G4 team. G4 has been very supportive of my work as an esports commentator and host. There’s always something going on, which [it’s] been incredible to be able to participate in across a wide breadth of different games. I just wrapped a League of Legends event just a little while ago, I’m doing Counter-Strike tomorrow, and then also working with the G4 team and creating new content ideas. It really is a crazy time to be alive. At least for me, as a person who’s worked in this business for such a long time now, to be able to say, “I’m Goldenboy and I’m a part of G4,” it just feels really surreal.

Then to also see that that announcement is going to be coming from my friend Xavier Woods, a professional wrestler who I’ve had great respect for for such a long time, alongside all these other incredible professional wrestlers and to be a part of the WWE festivities…It truly is a dream come true. I’m so grateful that G4 decided to hitch their wagon onto me. I hope that I don’t let them down. I hope I don’t let our viewers down because I love everything about video games and I love everything about esports, and I want to bring that vision, that uniqueness that I have had my entire career covering all sorts of games, to G4 in a way that no one else has done ever in gaming and in esports. I’m very much looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead.

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For more about the return of G4, visit the network’s website.

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G4 welcomes The Titan Games commentator Alex ‘Goldenboy’ Mendez

By Brittany Frederick | Apr 10, 2021