Another 2 WWE Name Changes Confirmed?
Established WWE NXT act lose their long-standing ring names, get new monickers.
A change of ring name beckons for both Grizzled Young Veterans in WWE.
PWInsider's Mike Johnson reported on Thursday that James Drake will soon become Jagger Reid, with Zack Gibson switching to Rip Fowler. When this will be reflected on company television is currently unknown - but it's in the works.
This had likely been in the company's mind for a while, as WWE filed its trademark application for "Rip Fowler" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on 4 May. Searching the USPTO's database for "Jagger Reid" currently yields no results, however.
Recent months have seen WWE change multiple established ring names used by its wrestlers prior to entering the company. WALTER's transformation into Gunther stands as the most notable of these, with the promotion keen to ditch ring names it cannot file trademark applications for.
The Grizzled Young Veterans fall into this category. Their use of "James Drake" and "Zack Gibson" predates their WWE run, so once the name-change edict came into play, their situation was a ticking clock.
Reid and Fowler are currently assigned to NXT 2.0, though they haven't wrestled on television since 19 April.