The Bushwhackers have wrestled under several different names throughout their career. When Luke Williams and Butch Miller began their careers in NWA New Zealand in 1966 they were known as The Kiwis. Sometimes they were also billed as The New Zealand Kiwis. They were still using this name in 1974 when they won their first tag team titles in the Western Hemisphere in Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling in Canada. In 1979 they would work out of Don Owen's Oregon-based Northwest Championship Wrestling promotion as The New Zealand Sheepherders. They first used the Sheepherders name during an extended feud with "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Rick Martel. A Spanish version of the same name, Los Pastores, was used during a run in Carlos Colon's World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico where they would achieve tag championship status also. For two years in the early 1980s, Butch moved closer to home while Luke stayed in the States. Jonathon Boyd became a Sheepherder in Miller's absence as he and Luke continued on. Luke would eventually reunite with Butch and go back to Puerto Rico but Boyd coupled with Rip Morgan to form a second Sheepherders group called The Kiwi Sheepherders. Butch and Luke wrestled under The Sheepherder name until signing with Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation in 1989. In the WWF, Butch and Luke would take on a more comedic style and their most memorable name, The Bushwhackers. Post-WWF, they would find themselves billed in 1998 as Luke and Butch Dudley in ECW from the Down Under Section of Dudleyville.
