WWE name choices (American Wolves name change)

With the American Wolves making their debut for NXT in the past week with new (in my opinion) awful names I was wondering what you thought of their process and why they think certain names would even work?

Btw the American Wolves are now the American Pitbulls (not bad I guess). Davey Richards is now John Cahill and Eddie Edwards is now Eric Philbin. Maybe it's just me but I really dislike both names and hate that they can't just keep them with their original names that are in my opinion really good, I get the whole legal rights thing but surely it's easy to come up with names better than John Cahill and Eric Philbin!?

American Pitbulls sounds good and (if they are a face team) sounds like they *could* debut into an interesting feud with the Real Americans...

John Cahill is fine but the other one is awful. Can't say Eric without thinking Cartman and Philbin sounds like a comedy character name

It does seem at times like WWE uses some sort of random name generator.

I could imagine John Cahill and Eric Philbin working in the same accountancy firm as Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Adrian Neville.

It feels like WWE hasn't got any hope for them and has given them the blandest names they could come up with. I do though like Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins name wise.

The bad names I think are ones like Husky Harris, Michael Mcgullicutty or however it's spelt), Husky Harris etc mainly Nexus haha

Viper really didn't like husky Harris lol

I don't think Ambrose and Rollins are too bad, but they definitely sound a lot like 'normal people' names. I could imagine Seth Rollins being a butcher. Dean Ambrose would maybe be a driving instructor or something. Daniel Bryan would be a League One level footballer.

How come certain guys like Cena and Orton got to keep their names? Was it because WWE knew they were going to be massive or something else? I assume Orton's Dad was the main reason he kept his but what about Cena?

I know that Punk kept his because they didn't think he'd get anywhere etc.

xviperx wrote:hate that they can't just keep them with their original names that are in my opinion really good

If they'd been called Philbin and Cahill before you'd probably be complaining about how terrible Richards and Edwards are.

I think a lot of these names take some getting used to, particularly if you've been following the wolves on the indies for the past 7 or so years, Cahill I don't mind, but I think Philbin just sounds silly for silliness sake, incidentally Edwards' real name is actually Eddie Edwards, maybe his parents were big fans of ski jumping?

Anyways Cahill's decent enough and will probably slip in to usage given enough time like Rollins, Ambrose and Cesaro, Philbin isn't great, though I'd still have it a place above the epically bad names like Kassius Ohno and Michael McGillicutty

Lowlandbrit wrote:

xviperx wrote:hate that they can't just keep them with their original names that are in my opinion really good

If they'd been called Philbin and Cahill before you'd probably be complaining about how terrible Richards and Edwards are.

Maybe with Cahill but Phillbin is awful.
Hopefully they're around long enough to sink in, especially Richards...such an amazing talent.

I like them both but I don't think a name will kill a good wrestler. I don't think a good name makes a massive difference either, Curtis Axel showing no more charisma with a shorter name.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:I like them both but I don't think a name will kill a good wrestler. I don't think a good name makes a massive difference either, Curtis Axel showing no more charisma with a shorter name.

Depends a bit. Steve Austin would never have become the biggest star of a generation if he'd kept the Ringmaster name.

But I definitely think talent is more important than a name. Daniel Bryan is a pretty bland name whatever way you look at it, but he's so good that people don't really think about that.

I think a truly bad name can hold a wrestler back though. The Red Rooster was never going to become a main eventer however good he was! An average name like Cahill and Philbin doesn't make a huge difference either way.

I really don't think Steve Austin would have made it as big, if when he was looking for ring names to reflect the idea of being 'stone cold' he took the WWF creative idea of Chilly McFreeze

Still broadly agree with the point that names, within reason, don't tend to make or break careers

McFreeze 3:16 says I just whipped your ass

crippledtart wrote:McFreeze 3:16 says I just whipped your ass

How to make the Attitude era 10x bigger in one move

While we're on the subject of names, I remember listening to an interview with Amazing Kong, a while back now, at on point she was talking about coming up with the Kharma name for her run in the 'E, apparently she was given the opportunity to suggest names of her own

One she came up with was like Bodessa Be Wicked or something, I forget exactly what it was but she said the main reason she wanted it was that it could be shortened to B.B.W

My respect and love for the woman went up ten fold after hearing that

Of course its all within reasonable standards. I think the Undercrackers or CM Spunk would have struggled to get over. Equally, Edge and Muslim probably would have come up against problems

Mason Ryan's name is actually his two mates from back home's Surnames (and incidentally was the name they suggested to him to put forward and was the last on the list and the WWE loved it)

imprettyfly wrote:Mason Ryan's name is actually his two mates from back home's Surnames (and incidentally was the name they suggested to him to put forward and was the last on the list and the WWE loved it)

Proof that a good name can take you a long way

I think when WWE are dishing out names for their new talent they should use the real names of other talent past or present who use/used gimmick names.

Davey Richards should have been renamed Bryan Danielson and Eddie Edwards should have been called Phil Brooks.

I feel sorry for whoever got Michael Hickenbottom

"And that's the Hickenbottom line, because Michael Hickenbottom said so!"

That works

This very topic is addressed on tonight's v2 Wrestling Podcast at http://v2wrestling.podomatic.com/entry/2013-11-28T11_19_15-08_00

xviperx wrote:Btw the American Wolves are now the American Pitbulls (not bad I guess). Davey Richards is now John Cahill and Eddie Edwards is now Eric Philbin.

So, the episode is out: according to the commentary Eddie is John Cahill, Davey is Derrick Billington.

The short one looks like Matt Striker...