10 Times WWE Saddled Wrestlers With HORRENDOUS Names
The wrestling business is hard enough without having to refer to yourself as "Mabel"...
Though wrestling is a collaborative business, to some extent you’re ultimately responsible for your own fortune. It’s why wrestlers are so willing to put their wellbeing on the line, to work such exhausting schedules, and on occasion to look out exclusively for number one - they do what they have to in pursuit of their goals.
When you’re hamstrung with a terrible in-ring name, though, there’s only so much you can do. You may have the moves, the swagger, the charisma, but if you’ve got a name no crowd is ever going to want to chant, you’re going to flounder.
Sometimes the creatives see sense and adjust accordingly, allowing promising wrestlers to flourish. Other times, someone up top evidently likes what they’ve seen, and the poor performers are doomed to toil in the enforced obscurity of an unworkable persona.
While the era of the truly stupid gimmick is in the past, there are still wrestlers today getting shafted with awful names, and nothing to work with. But wrestling is an industry that welcomes a reinvention - perhaps there’s hope to be drawn from those who’ve managed to shake bad names in the past.
10. Stardust
If there’s one thing Vince McMahon loves almost as much as making money or promoting muscular men, it’s mugging off the Rhodes family. When Dusty jumped to WWE in the late '80s, Vince did everything he could to embarrass his former rival, dressing him in polka dots and making him dance. Dusty got this over on charisma alone, and likewise his son Dustin made the Goldust gimmick sing.
When it was time for Cody Rhodes to adopt the Stardust persona, though, that was just about enough to drive the younger Rhodes out of McMahon’s business. While his father had used the nickname back in the NWA, he wasn't forced to pretend he was some sort of bizarre spaceman, and it’s clear just from watching that Cody had no great fondness for the part. The rest is history - Rhodes left the company and quickly set up a promotion of his own which has given Vince, if not a run for his money, then viable competition at the very least.
Sadly, WWE have maintained the rights to “Cody Rhodes”, meaning Cody has had to drop his legendary family name (though the commentators forget this pretty frequently). Still, it’s heartening to see that Vince’s folly has led to a real thorn in his side.