WWE befuddles fans with Ricky Starks name change (and here's why they did it)

Ricky Starks shocked the wrestling world last week when he showed up on Wednesday's broadcast of NXT. Just one day earlier, it was announced that Starks was released from his AEW contract. Fans expected a move to WWE to eventually come, just not for it to happen instantly.

Once the shock faded, wrestling fans noticed that the broadcast never said Starks' name. There was no music, no graphics, no mention of his name. With other recently trademarked names floating around the wrestling world, many fans were worried that WWE would rebrand Starks and give him a ludicrous name.

WWE confirmed those worries during this week's taping of NXT as Starks' new name was officially revealed. Instead of going by his biological name, which is what he made a name for himself with, the former AEW wrestler will now go by something similar that doesn't quite feel the same... Ricky Saints.

Ricky Saints is not the worst name WWE could have come up as there were some truly head-scratching names that were trademarked. This isn't another Butch situation where the company changed Pete Dunne's name to something completely different that didn't make much sense.

It is clear WWE wanted to capture the aura of the Ricky Starks name by calling him Ricky Saints. But if you are going to get that close to the original, why not just let him wrestle under his own name for the company?

Why did WWE rebrand Ricky Starks as Ricky Saints?

Ricky Saints owns the Ricky Starks name, so any use of it by WWE would have to be approved via some kind of licensing deal. By doing this, Ricky would have maintained control of his namesake while also working out some kind of licensing fee that would have paid him more.

The same situation happened with Ethan Page. While Ethan Page is not his biological name, he owned the rights to the name and is still using in WWE. For one reason or another, Page and WWE were able to work out a licensing deal. Ricky Saints and WWE were not.

While there may be a real-world explanation for this name change, it does not change the fact that it hits the ear a bit wrong. It is going to take some time for WWE fans to get used to Ricky Saints, and it wouldn't be all that surprising if Saints has a slip-up and refers to himself by his old name.

But then again, Lexis King caught on fairly quickly when everyone thought they would keep calling him Brian Pillman Jr. So maybe the same thing will happen with Ricky Saints.