Austin Theory Surprised By Bizarre WWE Change
Austin Theory has recalled what it was like when he found out he would be losing his first name in WWE.
During the Vince McMahon era of WWE, there were numerous instances where a wrestler would get called up from NXT or brought in from elsewhere and all of a sudden they had a shorter name.
Wrestlers like Adrian Neville became just Neville, Alexander Rusev was simply Rusev, Antonio Cesaro became Cesaro, and so on. Another wrestler whose name was changed by the company was a rising young star named Austin Theory.
After going with just the name Theory, the full name of Austin Theory was back in the summer of 2022 when Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over as the WWE Chief Content Officer, which meant he was running the creative team. After the name change, Triple H claimed that using just “Theory” was weird.
The 27-year-old Smackdown star, whose real name is Austin White, spoke to Chris Van Vliet about the surprising name change. During the discussion, Theory said that he came up with the Austin Theory name as a kid when he was backyard wrestling.
“It’s so funny thinking about it now. Even when I got to the main roster, I became Theory. But yeah that was a thing I was hearing and they’re like hey, we’ll offer you this for your name, or we’re gonna change it.
To me, I was just like, ;well I came up with my name when I was a kid wrestling in the backyard.; But, I don’t know why I wouldn’t just give it to him, because what am I going to do with it? They can do more than I can do with it. But yeah I’m glad I got to keep the name.
Austin Theory Wasn’t Told About Name Change
While continuing to talk about his name, Austin Theory revealed that he wasn’t told about the WWE name change until he showed up to work one day and handed him a piece of paper with his shortened name on it.
But on the main roster, it was funny, like walking in one day and just, here’s what you’re doing today? And somebody gives it to me, and I read it and it’s like, ‘Wait, Theory?’ I’m just Theory now. And the guy’s like, ‘Yeah, I thought they would have told you.’ Nobody was gonna tell me, so I had to go have a conversation about that, figure out what it was. But we got it back on track. We’re back to Austin Theory.”
When WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was brought up as a possible reason for the name shortening, Theory said it was likely a factor.
“That was a reason. But also I was told, and that had just happened around the time of the Mania thing, when I did the greatest stunner sell of all time. But I also was told that Theory just sounds like a name that stands alone and can’t complain about that. [But] when you Google Theory, I mean, what’s going to come up? Not going to be these 20-inch arms.”
In his main roster career so far, Austin Theory is a two-time US Champion who held the title for a combined 333 days. He has also been a WWE Tag Team Champion with Grayson Waller as well. Perhaps the biggest win of Theory’s career took place at WrestleMania 39 when he beat John Cena to retain the US Title.