11 Awful Names WWE Wrestlers Rejected

9. Vader - The Mastodon

Vader WWE 1996
WWE.com

Big Van Vader was one of the wrestling's great heels in the early '90s, a multi-time world champion in WCW and Japan and a performer widely regarded as one of the great big men of history. Vader's prime may have been past him when he signed with the then-WWF in 1996, but he was still considered a major acquisition for Vince McMahon.

Which makes it all the more puzzling that Vince wanted Vader to be renamed 'The Mastodon'. Whilst this would go on to be used as a nickname for the big man, it seems preposterous that Vince McMahon would take one of the biggest names in pro wrestling and attempt to rebrand him, and rebrand only slightly.

Of course, the dollar signs were what interested Vince the most, but if the change had gone ahead fans would have seen right through it. Luckily the change was avoided, and Vader stayed as Vader. The Mastodon isn't entirely bad, but the context of the proposal was. Saying that, at least it wasn't the Baby Bull name that Leon White used originally.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.