10 Rejected Wrestler Names WWE ACTUALLY Pitched
5. Riot & Rage (Edge & Christian)
To the man himself for some memories of WWE's desperation to give him a one-word name and gimmick that they themselves didn't exactly understand.
Speaking to Sean Mooney on his podcast in 2018, he said, "No one had any idea. Including me, honestly..So at one point it was thrown around that I was going to be a deaf mute. I was just going to be this guy. This ‘angry guy’ and I thought ‘oh my gosh what do I do with that?’ Talk about dead in the water. There’s nowhere to go there...Initially Edge was just supposed to be this - I was told - a tortured soul. I just finished a dark match. I didn’t think it through in terms of the cadence of a crowd being able to chant that. I shot myself in the foot there, but it was better than ‘Rage’ or ‘Riot’ which were their two ideas".
Edge and Christian didn't still didn't get that promo time as members of The Brood until they left Gangrel's side in 1999, but "Riot" and "Rage" probably wouldn't have gotten away with the hijinks that got them all the way over year later - nothing says tortured souls quite like kazoos and streamers.