UPDATE: Details on Origin of Rumor About Why War Raiders’ Name Was Changed

UPDATE: It appears as if we know where the rumor about WWE changing the War Raiders’ name due to the “War” part came about. Speculation kicked off on social media after Mick Foley made made a comment on Twitter that suggested “War” wouldn’t fly in 2019.

It’s worth mentioning that Foley’s tweet has a humorous bent to it. It seems quite likely that Foley wasn’t being serious, but that fans took it as such.

https://twitter.com/RealMickFoley/status/1117957544897646592

WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross fueled the “War” speculation earlier this week on Twitter when he suggested that the word would not fly in WWE in 2019. It should be noted that WWE refers to Ember Moon as The War Goddess and they have the WWE NXT “Takeover: War Games” events each year.

Ross wrote, “Anything with the word ‘war’ in it is just not going to fly in @WWE in 2019. The #Warlord is now taking bookings at #VikingLord and old Attitude Era #Raw episodes have been renamed #RawIsViking”

ORIGINAL: This past Monday on RAW, Hanson and Rowe of the War Raiders made their main roster debut, but they instead became Ivar and Erik of The Viking Experience. The name is almost universally hated online and it turns out it was changed mainly because Vince McMahon didn’t like the name “War Raiders” or “The Berzerkers” which was also considered.

When asked if the change was made due to the marketability of the term “War”, Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio replied: “There’s nothing to do with ‘war’, Vince just wanted to change the name, that’s all. He didn’t like ‘War Raiders’ and he wanted to change the name. That’s all there is to it. There’s no other reason. Vince just on the day of the show, on Monday, decided he didn’t like the name and told them to come up with a new one.“