20 Weirdest Aliases Once Used By WWE SmackDown Superstars
Past gimmicks come back to haunt Roman Reigns, Charlotte, Rey Mysterio, and more...
While many people are burdened with awful names, which out of parental guilt or habit they keep, in sports entertainment, it’s easier to change name than it is an attire colour. This allows wrestlers and writers to extend their creativity without being bound to an experimental nickname inspired by an off-the-cuff turn of phrase.
Oscar Wilde once mourned “it is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things”. While wrestling aliases and nicknames are rarely “lovely”, aside from Corey Graves’ poetic ‘God’s Greatest Creation’ description of Mandy Rose, they are interesting and impactful.
A new name can turn a wrestler’s career around. In the case of SmackDown’s current stars, this certainly rings true. It is hard to imagine ‘Very Mysterious Ice Cream’, ‘Battery Man’, and ‘Mr. Ziggles’ headlining Friday nights.
Perhaps the most triumphant transformation via a rename occurred in 1997, when ‘Rocky Maivia’ became ‘The Rock’. Dwayne Johnson went from being bombarded with “Die, Rocky, Die” chants to being one of the most successful and beloved athletes in sports entertainment.
SmackDown’s roster has had their fair share of Rocky Maivias…