WWE likes to own creative content of their superstars, and that is why they usually give new names to guys that have been successful on the Indy scene. But, that is not always the case as we can see that Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles were able to keep their names when they made their WWE debuts.
That just means that they are way too popular for the company to change their names as the fans know them from their previous promotions. That just shows you how big of a star AJ Styles was before he made his debut at the Royal Rumble. If the ovation that he got that night didn’t convince you, this should. Guys like Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Finn Balor and many more superstars got their name changed before they came to the company. When we tell you about Tyler Black, there is a good chance you don’t know who he is. But, you now know him by his WWE name, Seth Rollins.
Styles recently spoke about the time before he put his signature on the contract that the company offered him. In the interview, he talked about whether or not Vince wanted to have his name changed to something that is going to be unique in the WWE. Here is what he had to say about that.
“WWE didn’t say anything about changing it. I just assumed it would probably happen, but a year prior, maybe a couple of months prior, Samoa Joe had gone to NXT and they didn’t change his name, so I thought, ‘well, maybe there’s a chance. But, at the same time, I was like, ‘Ah, I don’t care what they call me, Velocity if you want to call me that, whatever’. But I’m glad they stuck with AJ Styles and it actually worked out for everybody.”
