WWE appears to hate first names, hence why Antonio Cesaro, Alexander Rusev, and even Andrade "Cien" Almas all lost parts of their names over the years. During a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer decided to tell the story of why Cesaro and Rusev ended up losing their first names shortly after being moved up from NXT.
Recalling a meeting that took place about Rusev a number of years ago, Meltzer said: "There was a meeting and at the meeting, Vince goes, ‘We gotta drop that first name.'"
"[Vince said], 'If we call him Alexander Rusev, people are gonna start gonna calling him Alex and Alex is not a good name for a heel.’ That’s the real reason so that’s why they dropped the first name," he continued. "The same thing happened with Cesaro. The reason why they dropped [the name] Antonio Cesaro was because Vince said people are going to start calling him Tony and Tony is not a heel name so we gotta drop the first name."
When his co-host Bryan Alvarez asked why Vince has never dropped his own first name, Meltzer pointed out that he did, hence why he was known as "Mr. McMahon" for a time.
Do you agree with Vince McMahon's take on why heels shouldn't have first names?