WWE, WWE.com
When it comes to giving its superstars proper ring names, WWE dropped the ball hard with these twenty men and women.
To be a successful pro wrestler, one must have a strong and convincing ring name. It’s one of the biggest parts of that wrestler’s first impression. If a wrestler comes out and looks cool but has a dorky or uninspiring wrestling name, their chances of success fall dramatically.
WWE’s no stranger to giving its wrestlers bad, stupid, jokey or lazy wrestling names. In fact, most of today’s most recognizable wrestlers were given horrible proposals for ring names. Steve Austin was first called ‘The Ringmaster’ and when he was looking for a new name to complement ‘Steve Austin’, he was given suggestions like ‘Chilly McFreeze’ and ‘Ice Dagger’. Not the stuff of great imaginations, for sure.
Mick Foley’s Mankind character was originally supposed to be named ‘Mason the Mutilator’, which definitely wouldn’t have resonated as well as Foley’s proposals. Vader was supposed to be named ‘Mastodon’ which was something Jim Cornette fought tooth and nail against and won, thankfully.
It doesn’t end there with the awful names. The oxymoron that is WWE’s creative department has been just as bad with proposals with more recent stars as well. One of Daniel Bryan’s proposed names was ‘Buddy Peacock’, and the Great Khali was penciled in to be named ‘Lord Shiva’. The former would’ve killed Bryan’s career before it even started, and the latter would’ve offended millions of Hindu fans around the world.
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Thankfully, most of the above bad names either didn’t last long or never got approval. But the twenty below weren’t only approved, but they appeared on WWE TV…