"That name sucks" - Details on Triple H's original idea for former WWE tag team
Mojo Rawley has revealed that WWE NXT founder Triple H thought The Hype Bros’ tag team name “sucked” and he originally planned to change it.
Rawley and Zack Ryder worked as The Hype Bros in NXT between June 2015 and July 2016. They went on to join forces on WWE SmackDown before Rawley turned heel on Ryder in November 2017.
Speaking to Matt Rehwoldt (f.k.a. Aiden English) on the Straight Shooting podcast, Rawley said Triple H gave him a heads-up about working with Ryder. Regarding their tag team name, the 14-time WWE World Champion jokingly suggested The Hype Bros before promising to think of something else.
“Then he [Triple H] goes, and I’ll never forget this, he goes, ‘Yeah, you know, he’s the bro, you’re the hype. We’ll just put you guys together and, you know, you’ll be like… we’ll call you The Hype Bros or something. Not that name – that name sucks – but we’ll come up with something better,’” Rawley said. “And it stuck! We never changed it! It was The Hype Bros, and he [Triple H] himself was like, ‘This name sucks, we’ll get you something better.’”
Rawley added that Triple H viewed him as someone who was more suited to the main roster than NXT. He thought Rawley being associated with Ryder would increase his chances of succeeding on RAW and SmackDown.
Mojo Rawley thinks Triple H’s Hype Bros idea was “doomed from the start”
High-profile NXT signings are often shown in the front row at TakeOver events before making their in-ring debut for the brand.
Mojo Rawley said Triple H planned to show The Hype Bros in the front row at a TakeOver event before the tag team debuted. However, their on-screen appearance was cut from TakeOver and demoted to WWE’s Snapchat account instead.
“Our debut was me and Zack sitting in the crowd at a TakeOver and they put us on Snapchat,” Rawley said. “Broski and Mojo sitting together, or whatever the hell the caption was. They didn’t put it on Instagram, they didn’t put it on Twitter. They were supposed to tease it on the show… that got cut too. So Zack and I joke all the time that our debut came on the company’s defunct Snapchat. I didn’t even know they had a Snapchat! We were like, ‘Dude, this tag team’s doomed from the start.’”
Zack Ryder reunited with his former tag team partner, Curt Hawkins, before receiving his release from WWE in April 2020. Mojo Rawley continued to work as a singles competitor before he was released in April 2021.
Please credit Straight Shooting and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.