12 Wrestlers Whose Ring Names Outlasted Their Gimmicks

And speaking of the New Age Outlaws, the name of Road Dogg’s partner is itself a relic of the WWF’s “New Generation” era, where every new wrestler had to have an occupation outside of the squared circle. In Monty Sopp’s case, that occupation was rodeo cowboy. Billy Gunn and his brother Bart formed the Smoking Gunns, graduates from Sam Houston State with rodeo scholarships and a flair for the old shoot ‘em up wild west gunplay. The conveniently named Gunns would fire off blanks during their entrances and once, during the WWF’s first and only “Raw Bowl” match, wore American football jerseys bearing the numbers .38 and .45.

Billy Gunn would join forces with the Honky Tonk Man in 1997 to become “Rockabilly”, then joined the New Age Outlaws as “Bad Ass” Billy Gunn, having accepted “Billy Gunn” as if it were his real name. Even though a series of ludicrous nicknames followed, such as “Mr. Ass” and “The One”, Sopp would always fall back on the name that brung him to the dance over two decades ago.