Apollo Crews shined in last week’s second-chance Fatal Five-Way match for a spot in the WWE Elimination Chamber, even if he didn’t win. Could some changes be coming for Apollo in the near future?
Following the “Superstar Shakeup”, Apollo Crews was traded from WWE SmackDown Live to Raw, and he joined forces with Titus O’Neil to form Titus Worldwide. Since then, Titus Worldwide has added Akira Tozawa (now dropped) and Dana Brooke, though the wins for this budding faction have been sporadic.
It looks Apollo will be on the receiving end of some more changes, because it appears he has dropped his last name and will now just go by “Apollo”. He has changed his Twitter name to “Apollo” (the handle is @ApolloCrews), and his WWE.com profile now just refers to him as “Apollo”.
We’ve seen the WWE drop names from superstars several times. Alexander Rusev became “Rusev”, Antonio Cesaro became “Cesaro”, and, most recently, Elias Samson is now just “Elias”. Sometimes, a superstar will add a name, such as when Charlotte became referred to as “Charlotte Flair” on television, but this is rare.
Apollo has quietly excelled in the ring on Raw early in 2018, but that doesn’t come as a surprise. We’ve always known that Apollo can “go” in the ring, as he was a star outside of WWE and in NXT before quickly being called up to the main roster. He showed potential on SmackDown Live before being traded to Raw, though neither brand has done much with him.
With Apollo, it’s always been a question of the type of character he will portray. It’s easy enough to get behind the happy-go-lucky Apollo, but there is something admittedly off about a guy who is all too willing to celebrate with Titus and Dana after losing a match.
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Hopefully the name change is a sign of more changes to come in 2018, and hopefully they are positive ones. Apollo’s potential is difficult to question, and he’s a compelling character tweak – plus a few signature wins – away from being someone the WWE Universe could buy into.