Eric Bischoff Says WWE Made The Right Move By Changing So Many Names

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon oversees everything that goes on in the company. He has the last say in every single decision, for better or for worse. Eric Bischoff also commented on WWE’s latest set of name changes.

Earlier this month, fans had to witness yet another series of name changes for talents. This included Austin Theory’s name being changed to just Theory. Even Raquel Gonzalez’s name was changed to Rodriguez.

Before that, the company changed WATER’s name to Gunther and Pete Dunne to simply Butch. While speaking on Strictly Business, WWE Hall Of Famer Eric Bischoff addressed WWE changing up the names of multiple talent. He also stated that it was the right move on WWE’s part.

“If he was WALTER in his indy career and he’s going to be WALTER on Monday Night RAW or SmackDown, then there’s a cloud over who owns that trademark. WWE doesn’t want to have intellectual property, talent, storylines, creativity, promotion, all of the other things that go into the value of building that intellectual property if they don’t own it. Who would do that?

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That would be the same thing as you or I deciding we’re going to rent a piece of property, a beach-front property, we don’t own it, we’re going to rent it and then we both decide I know we’re only renting that property, we don’t really own it but let’s build a house on it. We built a big beautiful home on this big piece of beachfront property and then the guy that owns the title to the property shows up and goes, this is awesome, you guys did a great job, built my dream home on the property that I own. See ya, here’s your eviction notice. You’ve invested all of this money on a beautiful home, on a piece of property that you don’t even own. In this case, WALTER is the property that they don’t really own and in this case, Gunther is the home.

I can assume that there was an attempt to trademark Austin Theory and for whatever reason, it’s possible that that trademark was denied and could’ve been challenged. Who knows? We don’t know, so they adjusted on the fly and went with Theory instead as a wrestling-related character. I kind of dig it better actually, I like those kinds of names, I like simple brands that aren’t necessarily traditional first and last names. I liked it when they did it and in terms of the reason why they did it, too much we don’t know to speculate.”

For better or for worse, WWE will keep on changing the names of their talent. We will have to wait and see which other names the company will end up changing next.

h/t to Wrestling Inc for the quotes

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