WWE Star Recalls Vince McMahon Changing Tag Team Name Multiple Times
Vince McMahon had a weird obsession with changing wrestler names, and one superstar went into detail about what it was like for his tag team.
There are many wrestlers in WWE history who have undergone name changes. In today’s era, it doesn’t happen much, but when Vince McMahon was calling the shots as WWE’s Chairman for 40+ years, it happened, much to the dismay of the fans.
The War Raiders team of Erik & Ivar walked into WrestleMania 41 as the World Tag Team Champions, but they lost those titles to The New Day.
Before their run as The War Raiders, they were known as The Viking Experience and The Viking Raiders. Other names were also considered when Vince McMahon was calling the shots.
During an interview with Insight’s Chris Van Vliet, Erik of The War Raiders talked about the changes to their names, first mentioning The Viking Experience name.
“It was less than a week, it was like six days and then we were The Viking Raiders. However, the only thing that changed was our name. We were still the same people. We still did the same moves, we still did the same entrance. We still wore the same clothes, same horns and armor and all the stuff.
I think we still even had the same music, they just changed the name on the tron. But people on Twitter have never let us forget, like ever. Every time we’re on TV, we’ll get at least a dozen Viking Experience tweets, which is funny, but yeah, we can go down that rabbit hole if you want to.
It was a silly, silly, silly moment. Because that was our debut from NXT, and we had already gotten our name changed once, because we were War Machine on the Indies, then we came to WWE, and they couldn’t use that name for a variety of legitimate and good reasons.”
Erik Spoke Directly To Vince McMahon About Changing WWE Team Name
As the discussion continued, Erik opened up about his conversations with Vince McMahon about changing the team name. Erik also revealed that, at some point, the Doomsday Raiders were considered a team name.
“So from War Machine to War Raiders, the initial one was Doomsday Raiders. We were like oof. Okay, could we give you some ideas? So Ivar and I went and we talked about a bunch of stuff, we probably gave 50 names back. Then someone told us they really want to put raiders in the name. So we came up with 50 names with raiders in them, and the number one on our list was actually Viking Raiders.
We’re like, ‘Hey, this is a name that we like. It kind of fits who we are, the look we’ve got, the energy we’ve got, I like this name.’ So we sent it up and I think it was Hunter who was like, ‘We’re kind of thinking War Raiders.’ I was like, well, let’s give you some different ideas. He said, ‘Yeah, but we really like War Raiders.’ And we’re like, yeah War Raiders is the coolest name we’ve ever heard. So then we became the War Raiders. Then we were War Raiders in all of NXT, we liked the name, and then we got called up. We were the Viking Experience.”
Over 30 years ago, there was a wrestler named The Berzerker who was known as a Viking. He liked to yell “Huss” during matches. According to Erik, Vince McMahon and the creative team thought of The Berzerkers as a team name for the War Raiders.
Our first day on the main roster. We had never actually physically met Vince McMahon, but we went and stood outside his office to go and plead our case. Because I was ringside, this is fun, I was ringside, and I see our music starts playing, and it’s ‘The War Raiders’ up on the screen, and then the logo changes, and Berzerkers comes up.
Now I’m looking like, ‘oh man.’ Then that goes away, and the Viking Experience comes up. I look and I’m like, Oh no! So I walk up and Hunter was actually ringside, he’s texting, and I walk up to him and I was like, ‘Hey, dude, is this a rib?’ He just shakes his head and goes, ‘I wish.’ I’m like, ‘What do we do?’ He’s like, ‘Well, you gotta go talk to Vince.’ All right, cool.
So Ivar’s plane was late, he gets to the building, I tell him we got to go talk to Vince. This is bad, right? So we go get in line, stand, we make our case. Said, Viking Experience sounds like a Disney ride, it sounds something like a small world, the tea cups and all that stuff. The Viking Experience, bring your kids, right?”
As he continued, Erik revealed that Vince McMahon didn’t care who was named Ivar or Erik, but he told them those were their names.
“So, we pitched that case, and Vince was like, ‘Well, that makes sense, but we don’t have time to get that through legal.’ Because we asked to be Viking Raiders because we heard through a little birdie told us, when we changed from War Machine to War Raiders, it was they were really stuck on Raiders. So all of the names had raiders in them.
This time, Vince was really stuck on us being Vikings. He loved Vikings. Little known fact, Vince was a big fan of the history show Vikings, which is probably why we got called up in the first place, because he was like, ‘Hey, we got Vikings on TV? Bring them up.’ So he wanted us to be the Viking something, right? And the problem is, Vikings are a very popular thing in culture right now. So nothing could get past legal, nothing could get trademarked, nothing could get whatever.
Viking Experience was shockingly free, because no one wanted to be that, including us. So we asked to be Viking Raiders. By this point, it’s like, 7:30 p.m., right? The show’s going on at eight. He was like, ‘Well, we can’t get this cleared through legal at this point. So what we’ll do is, you’ll be the Viking Experience today, and if we really don’t like it, then we’ll be Viking Raiders next week. And you know, no press is bad press. So worst case scenario, people will talk. They’ll be talking about you.’
So we’re like, okay, and as we’re leaving the office, kind of in an afterthought, he goes, ‘Oh and by the way, one of you is Ivar, and one of you is Erik, I don’t care who.’ We just walked out.
I looked and we were maybe two steps outside of his office, and Ivar grabs my arm for real, and he’s like, ‘Please don’t make me be Erik. My brother’s name is Erik.’ The bully in my brain for like, three seconds, I was like, ‘Man, I really should be mean. No, okay, fine, you could be Ivar.’ But I really, it was close to us being the other way. I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know how they came up with these names.’
Someone in creative might have just Googled famous Viking names or something. Because I did that afterwards, trying to figure out where they come up with these names? The first one was Erik the Red. Then it was Ivar the Boneless. I was like, Oh, cool. So it’s literally just Erik, Ivar. You guys are Vikings, yep, Eric and Ivar.”
To wrap up the subject of their team name, Erik said now, as the War Raiders with Triple H running WWE creatively, they are like the War Machine that they were in ROH and the Indies.
“More important than that, we got to be ourselves. Now, as War Raiders, we are the closest thing to War Machine that we’ve ever been. No face paint. We’re not even wearing horns and helmets and armor. We’re coming out in essentially biker vests, leather vests. This is what I wear to TV.
I just put a vest on, and I cut promos like this on WWE TV. I wear a black T-shirt and jeans, which is what I wear every day of my life. If I’m not in gym clothes, this is what I’m wearing.”