Back when Vince McMahon was running WWE creative, he had a very strange obsession with turning his wrestlers into one named superstars. For example, Austin Theory and Matt Riddle both lost their first names and instead wrestled as Theory and Riddle, respectively. Vince’s name-changing habit went back years, including folks like Antonio Cesaro, Alexander Rusev, Apollo Crews, Charlotte Flair, Humberto Carrillo, Shotzi Blackheart, Angel Garza, Mustafa Ali, Luke Harper, and so many more.
Now that Triple H is running the show on the main roster, he has undone some of Vince’s wonky changes in this area. But the era of WWE wrestlers becoming one-named superstars isn’t over quite yet.
Many NXT viewers noticed that Ava Raine, who happens to be the daughter of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, was simply referred to as “Ava” on this week’s episode. And now the roster page on WWE’s web site reflects this change, cutting the word “Raine” from her name altogether.
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Her bio on the site also dropped her surname:
“For weeks, a mysterious person dressed in a red hoodie and wearing a yellow mask was seen wandering the halls of the WWE Performance Center and shadowing The Schism’s path.
On the Oct. 25 edition of NXT, this mysterious person was revealed to be none other than Ava, The Schism’s fourth member.
Alongside leader Joe Gacy as well as The Dyad (Rip Fowler and Jagger Reid), Ava has already shown she’s willing to do what it takes to grow The Schism into the most powerful force in NXT. Four roots, one tree.”
See that, even The Rock’s daughter isn’t immune to WWE’s wacky world of multiple name changes and one-named superstars. Shawn Michaels is the guy running things down in NXT, so I’m curious to hear about everything he doesn’t know about Ava’s name change.
What do you make of this one, Cagesiders?
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