15 WWE Wrestlers Who Lost A Name

1. Rock(y) (Maivia)

Mustafa Ali
WWE.com

When Rocky Maivia came back from an injury in summer 1997, he returned with a new attitude, and sans last name.

Or so WWE would have you believe.

While Maivia started referring to himself as The Rock upon joining the Nation of Domination, his ring name still was Rocky “The Rock” Maivia for several more months. Regardless, Rocky’s shortened name matched his new persona, a character that would obviously become one of the biggest names in professional wrestling – and then take over the entertainment world.

Does anyone think Dwayne Johnson would be where he is today if he still went by Rocky Maivia well after he returned to action in 1997? Clearly, chopping off his last name and shortening things down to just The Rock (along with the obvious personality change) helped with his re-identification and led to him becoming the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment.

And while losing his last name was secondary, it can’t be ignored that this was the most successful name shortening in WWE.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.