Xavier Woods isn’t fazed by WWE changing his name

After being out of action for about two months due to injury, Xavier Woods returned to WWE last week on SmackDown and picked up a very quick win over Ridge Holland.

If you asked me to name the strangest thing about Woods’ return segment, I’d say it’s the part where Kofi Kingston came out by himself after the ring announcer said, “And his opponent, accompanied to the ring by Xavier Woods...”

Woods had not returned yet, so I didn’t understand why the announcer seemingly gave it away. The commentators ignored what the ring announcer said and instead questioned Kofi’s wisdom for confronting Sheamus’ nefarious gang by himself. Kofi went on to name Woods as Ridge Holland’s surprise opponent, and that’s when he officially returned. Something clearly got screwed up there with the ring announcer.

Perhaps it’s a minor detail that can be overlooked. But there’s an even smaller detail getting way more attention than that, and it’s the fact that the “King” part of Woods’ moniker was dropped and WWE referred to him as “Xavier” again. For those who don’t remember, Xavier Woods won the King of the Ring tournament last October and has been called “King Woods” ever since.

I don’t really consider this a name change, especially in a world with terrible WWE name changes like Doudrop, Butch, Gunther, and Bearcat. There’s also the fact that Woods still wore his crown to the ring during his return, so the king gimmick is still alive.

But Xavier Woods is aware that this happened, and he responded to the news:

So there you have it. Xavier Woods remains confident that he will accomplish great things in WWE regardless of his name. I’m not sure how he feels about Vince McMahon allegedly wanting to veer away from the “New Day” team name, however.

Let us know in the comments below how you feel about WWE changing Woods’ name from King back to Xavier, Cagesiders.