10 Wrestlers Who Ditched Their Terrible Ring Names

These days, John Cena is a 16-time world champion and easily one of the biggest names in pro wrestling history. Back in 2001, though, John Cena was simply the real-life name of the "engineered genius" known as the Prototype.

Touting himself as 50% man, 50% machine, the Prototype was some kind of human-android hybrid who would cut promos on both his opponent and "the rest of the humanoid scum". In fairness, it was pretty entertaining, and the whole part-man, part-machine shtick would at least have explained some of the superhuman feats of strength he’s been known to pull out in the ring.

However, it was also something of a throwback (and not a particularly welcome one) to the days of the ‘80s and ‘90s where wrestlers were unable to follow anthropological naming customs, instead going by one-word monikers like the Yeti, the Maestro, the Zodiac or the Shockmaster.

This side of the 21st century, names like that just weren’t going to cut it, and it’s hard to imagine the Prototype gimmick ever accumulating as many championships as plain-old John Cena has.

Much like Booker T, Cena is another who was wise to ditch a made-up name for the one he goes by in real life.