Former WWE star Curt Hawkins attributes his ring name to a late rock legend.
Former WWE Tag Team Champion Curt Hawkins, who is currently performing in TNA under his real name, Brian Myers, was the latest guest on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast. During the conversation, he opened up about how he got the name, Curt Hawkins.
During his early days in WWE developmental, he and Matt Cardona went by Brian and Brett Majors. However, when they debuted on the main roster and aligned with Edge, the promotion wanted to give them new, cool names.
“With the Majors, they didn’t want Matt to be Matt Brett. He was Brett Matthews. They made him Brett Majors, and I was Brian Majors, and they just didn’t want us to be brothers. Then when we did the reveal with Edge, Vince thought we were real brothers, apparently, and it came up in the meeting, unbeknownst to us. So we debuted with Adam at Armageddon, that was Sunday Night,” the former WWE star said.
“Raw, we don’t go do because we’re SmackDown talent. This is Tuesday, so we show up Tuesday and they come out of the meeting like, ‘You guys need new names. You need them now. ‘Then there was, of course, the WWE clusterf*ck sh*t. I remember, Johnny goes, ‘No, you’re with Edge now, you need cool names, like razor and slash.’ And we’re like, Oh, okay. So we were really brainstorming, oh sh*t, that’s not what we’re thinking.
The former WWE star and Matt Cardona came up with different names
Speaking further, Brian Myers said he and Matt Cardona brainstormed names for their debut on the WWE main roster. They came up with Kiedis and Cobain, based on Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Kiedis (63) is alive, while Cobain passed away in 1994 at age 27.
“Then Michael Hayes, we see him later today, goes, ‘That’s not what he said. He wants to just have, real believable names.’ We’re like, okay, that’s completely different, because at one point we were going to be Kiedis, and Cobain. We’ll tie it in with Edge. A rated R rock star?”
However, after Michael Hayes and Vince McMahon told them they should have regular names, Brett Majors became Zack Ryder, and he became Curt Hawkins. Myers revealed that he took Curt from late WWE legend Curt Hennig, and Myers from late rock legend Taylor Hawkins, who was a drummer and vocalist for the rock band Foo Fighters. Hawkins died at 50 years old in 2022
“Then we went and saw Vince, and we clarified. He said, No. So just regular names. And then Curt Hawkins is from Curt Hennig, one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. So it was a little tribute, and I was a fake Edge. So Taylor Hawkins always looked like Edge to me. I would tell Adam that. He’s a big [Foo Fighters fan],” the former WWE star said.
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