Rumors began circulating today that the reason WWE dropped Apollo Crews last name, shortening his name to just Apollo, was due to the company not wanting any association to the Parkland, Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz.
The website that started these reports claimed to have received an email from the WWE stating that this was the reason for shortening Apollo’s name. It should be noted however that usually when WWE responds to online reports they issue a simple statement. In this case there has been no official statement from WWE.
Ringsidenews.com reached out to the site that started the rumors but the site has refused to present the “email” in question. It should also be noted that this is the same site that shot down our reports last week of Jeff Jarrett’s potential Hall of Fame induction, stating that he would never go in and claimed that we misquoted the initial report.
The more likely scenario for why WWE decided to drop “Crews” from Apollo’s name is because of Vince McMahon. In the past McMahon has often decided to drop the last name or shorten the name of a WWE Superstar because he feels it sounds better for WWE Programming. For example, Luke Harper is now just Harper, Erik Rowan is now Rowan, Cesaro is no longer Antonio Cesaro, Alexander Rusev is now simply Rusev, Big E. Langston is now just Big E. and these are just a handful of WWE Superstars who have seen modifications to their names.
In an update to the rumor killer on Apollo Crews name being shortened due to association with the Parkland, Florida shooting, Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin posted a tweet also shooting down the rumor.
WWE PR is claiming they didn't send out any email saying this, so I'm confused. https://t.co/7ambaWxArx
— Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) February 19, 2018
