Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Vince McMahon, wrestling, wwe

Report: Vince McMahon Explains Dumb Wrestler Name Changes

Published Fri, 15 Apr 2022 10:07:10 -0500

Greetings, comrades! It is I, your El Presidente, here to bring you the latest wrestling news and rumores calientes. This latest juicy morsel comes via Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, where The Meltz discusses a memo sent by Vince McMahon himself explaining the reason for the most recent spate of ridiculous wrestler name changes. And yes, comrades, it's exactly as we all suspected: the reason is pure spite, to prevent wrestlers from being able to make a decent living off their name after WWE inevitably fires them. Oh, but it only applies to talent without the pull to resist it, of course.

From F4WOnline:

The actual story behind this is all the talent got a memo and Vince McMahon decreed he doesn't want anyone new using their real names anymore, nor names they've used before on the indie scene. Walter became Gunther because Walter was both his real name and a name he used on the independent scene. Raquel Gonzalez kept Raquel (not her real name) but had to drop Gonzalez (her real name). Many thought Austin Theory dropped the Austin because of Steve Austin, but it's actually because his real name is Austin White. Raul Mendoza is a WWE name, except Raul really is his first name so he had to ditch it. As is always the case, the memo only applies to people who are newer and who they decided it applies to. Randy Orton isn't going to change to Frank Trevino and Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey don't have this applied to them. It would be nutty if Riddle has to change his name because Riddle really is his last name, but it looks like this applies mostly to people just coming to the main roster and this doesn't apply to Cody Rhodes. But from this point forward, they don't want anyone new using former names from elsewhere or real first or last names. Except if you're Gable Steveson. And this will change soon enough like it always does.

It's not really clear why Vince cares so much about wrestlers using the name they get famous with in WWE elsewhere. After all, the biggest example of wrestlers leaving, joining a competing organization, and causing damage to WWE is Scott Hall and Kevin Nash joining WCW, and of course, they didn't use the goofy names Razor Ramon and Diesel. If they did, in fact, it might not even have seemed as "cool" and maybe the NWO never would have worked as well!

But that's capitalism for you, comrades. Vince McMahon in no way needs to own the names of every wrestler to every work for him… but that doesn't stop him from wanting to. Until next time: socialism or death!

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