Yes, It Could Have Been Worse. What Was The Original Name For The Viking Experience?

You mean it wasn’t the first choice? Earlier this week, Monday Night Raw held the first half of the annual Superstar Shakeup. The night included a variety of superstars moving from SmackDown Live, 205 Live and NXT over to Monday Night Raw, but there was one thing that dominated the reaction to the show. It’s one of them ore questionable things WWE has done in a long time and now we know something else about it.

This week on Monday Night Raw, the NXT Tag Team Champions the War Raiders were called up to the main roster, albeit under the new names of Ivar and Erik, collectively known as the Viking Experience. According to PWInsider, the original name for the team was going to be the Berzerkers, a nod/homage to the Berzerker, who wrestled for the company in the early 1990s. There is no word on when or why the name was changed.

It’s still a strange name. Check out the team’s debut under their new names:

Opinion: I’m still trying to wrap my head around the name the team was given and now it turns out that their original name was going to be even worse. Is it really impossible to just call them the War Raiders? Or the Raiders? Or the Vikings? Or Hanson and Rowe? I really don’t get this but it screams like a name that was thought up because it would trend well rather than sound well.

Which of the names is better? What should the team be called? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 2000 Monday Nitro and Thunder Reviews Part 1.

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