Triple H has recently taken over the reins of WWE from his father-in-law Vince McMahon, and a number of changes have followed in the short weeks since the transition. While the TV show has improved and some superstars have faired a lot better on TV, there have been other changes backstage that have made the wrestlers much happier to work in the company.
One of the biggest and most welcome changes has come with the naming conventions in WWE. Vince McMahon was known to enact wrestler name changes seemingly on a whim, usually removing part of a wrestlers name for no apparent reason, a practice that almost nobody in the company or fans at home seemed to think was a good idea.
Recent examples of this have included;
- Matt Riddle to Riddle
- Big E Langston to Big E
- Angel Garza to Angel
- Austin Theory to Theory
- Tommaso Ciampa to Ciampa
These shortenings very rarely, if ever, are received well and usually make the wrestlers in question improve in the eyes of the fans. It seems that the idea of removing a wrestlers name to shorten it is a thing of the past and that Triple H is more keen on letting stars keep their names, at least according to Dave Meltzer.
Dave Meltzer wrote in today’s edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE’s “weird name quirks” are changing, and that some wrestlers have already received their full names back after losing them under Vince McMahon.
Meltzer revealed that one WWE name change that has already occurred involves Los Lotharios Star Angel, who has been given back his surname Garza. He is the son of the legendary Hector Garza and acknowledging his lineage could go a long way to getting him over with the audience at home.
Meltzer also noted that his tag team partner Humberto will likely be getting his surname (Carillo) back in the near future.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote about the wrestler name changes;
“Some of the weird name quirks may be changing. Angel has already noted he is getting the Garza name back, which is notable because that is a family name, and under Vince, the idea was no last names that had been used prior to WWE unless somebody is already established in WWE with that name, or a Gable Steveson type. The belief is Humberto will get Carrillo back as well.”
WWE has not commented on the name change as of yet, but it is expected that more WWE wrestler name changes could be coming in the near future, such as changing Theory to Austin Theory and T-Bar back to Dominik Dijakovic