Taya Valkyrie Recalls Trying To Keep Her Name in WWE NXT

Taya Valkyrie was known as Franky Monet in WWE NXT, and she recently recalled trying to keep her preferred ring name there. Valkyrie spoke with AEW Unrestricted and talked about trying to hold onto the ring name she’d been known as for years in NXT before eventually settling on Franky Monet, which was inspired by Frankie from the film Stigmata as well as painter Claude Monet. You can see highlights from the discussion below, per Wrestling Inc:

On fighting to keep her ring name in WWE: “I was fighting so hard for Taya Valkyrie. Oh, my god. I went to bat for her over and over again and just kept getting ‘No, no, no.’ Even variations of it. I was going to use my first shoot name and then Valkyrie. I was trying all these different combinations of things because this is who I’ve been for 12 years, almost 13 years. I felt like that’s who the fans know, which made it even harder because I felt like Taya kind of died for a second. She kind of was taken to jail. She was nowhere to be seen. It was crazy.”

On her WWE name being inspired by Claude Monet: “I have been an artist my entire life and it just kind of went along with the artist [Claude] Monet,” Valkyrie said.