Vince McMahon's silly rules. Fans who've spent just a little time online are probably aware of some more ridiculous ones. Yet under Triple H's watch, wrestlers on Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown have been able to scale back a few of their former bosses' idiosyncrasies.
For instance, Twitter caught fire when, a few weeks back, Drew McIntyre was allowed to say the word "wrestler" and "wrestling" on television multiple times during an (awesome) segment with Kevin Owens. McMahon had banned those long ago, forcing everyone to refer to themselves and others as "sports entertainers" and "superstars." This is such a well-known schtick that one of AEW's top feuds at the moment (Chris Jericho vs. Bryan Danielson) is a matter of whether or not Daniel Garcia is a wrestler or sports entertainer. However, some of McMahon's rules are quickly fading, and a recent report indicates that another one has recently bitten the dust.
In a new update, Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com reported the following: "Theory is no longer Theory. He will officially return to using his full ring name of Austin Theory going forward... Matt Riddle will indeed 100% be going by his full name going forward as well, as seen on last night's edition of Raw." Johnson also noted that the shorter names had been an "edict under the Vince McMahon regime," but that is no longer the case.
WWE's Rule Shifts Benefit Wrestlers
As Johnson stated, during a segment on the August 29 episode of Raw, Seth Rollins called Riddle by his first name, Matt, and a graphic also referred to him by his first name. Rollins still mostly called Riddle by his last name, but it was clear that there was no longer a mandate against first names being used. Johnny Gargano was also allowed to debut under his full real name, which bucked another long-standing Vince McMahon rule.
It's another step towards making WWE television feel less robotic and scripted. Nobody talks how McMahon and his writing team asked the performers to speak, and it almost always took any air of believability out of promos. When Ciampa started calling The Miz by his real first name, Mike, during a match where he seemed rattled by a Dexter Lumis sighting, it just made more sense. how impactful CM Punk's line of "this is Phil Brooks talking to Paul Levesque" was during his feud with Triple H in 2011? Injecting just a bit more legitimacy into the language has taken WWE a long way in just over a month, and it's been a shot in the arm for both Raw and SmackDown.
Source: PWInsider.com