Triple H Rejected French NXT Superstar Names For Interesting Reason

Triple H has a reason for the decisions that he makes within NXT, and re-naming Ever-Rise was a bit of a tricky situation. He stayed away from using French names, but there was a very good reason for it.

During a discussion with Talk Is Jericho, the recent AEW signees, 2point0, revealed the process behind renaming them in WWE. Vince McMahon has a proclivity of seeing things in a certain way, and Triple H wanted to avoid French names. The Game realized that French names would provoke Vince McMahon to whip out the berets and force the team to go all the way with their French backgrounds.

“Getting stuff through legal in WWE is not an easy process. Getting anything through is not easy. We knew we didn’t want to be 3.0 anymore because it has no context in WWE, so we need a new name. My name is Matt Martel and he is Chase Parker. We were just going to be Parker and Martel. At some point, the thinking was we’re going to say something in a promo, say something during a match that was going to catch on, and that would become our team name.”

“Two days before we were set to debut, this was September 2019, so when AEW/NXT thing started, writer Joe pulled us aside and said, ‘You guys are going to debut on TV tomorrow, but Hunter wants you to have a name.’ We have to figure it out, right? So we go into a room with Road Dogg, and another writer named Baker, and we start pitching names but nothing sounds right. We go from trying to figure out maybe there are some French names we can do. That comes back to ‘Hunter doesn’t want you to be French because you’ll be wearing a beret in no time.’ That’s fair enough.”

Advertising

Advertising

“We come up with different names and nothing really sticks. Every time we come up with something that might stick, it doesn’t get through Legal. It goes all the way up to TV day. We’re there and it’s like 5:45, doors open at 6, show starts at 8, and we still don’t have a name. We need a new song, we need a new name, and we’re going live in 2 hours. We’re like, what is going on? It’s just the rest of our lives. No big deal right? It was a real lesson in WWE where you’re standing on the entrance stage, doors open in a half hour, you’re listening to music, you’re trying to figure out a new name, and all of this whirlwind is going through. You have to get changed, stretch, and plan a match. We’re standing there trying to figure out our new song. Joe came up to us and said, ‘Ok, so the last name you had didn’t clear Legal. You’re going to be Ever-Rise.’ We’re like, we’re what? This was never on the table. This is the first time we ever heard it and it’s officially our name. It just blew our minds. I said, ‘Where did that come from?’ He said, ‘If I had a band when I was a teenager, I would have named it Ever-Rise.’”

2point0 have already received a much greater spotlight in AEW than they ever achieved in WWE. The tag team stand-outs battled with Sting early on in their AEW tenures, and that’s a huge achievement. We’ll have to see what’s next for them in AEW, but they are now in a company that wouldn’t stereotype a French name like Vince McMahon is likely to.

What’s your take on this story? Sound off in the comments!

Thanks to Wrestling News for the transcription.