WWE Rumors: Former Superstar Claims Company Wanted To Give Him Female Ring Name Ahead Of His Debut

Although he’s mostly been known in the wrestling business by one spelling of his ring name or another, WWE officials allegedly had something different in mind for the man called Rhyno — aka Terrance Gerin — upon his move from Paul Heyman’s now-defunct ECW promotion. In a recent interview, the ex-WWE mid-carder opened up about his former employer’s supposed plans for his onscreen identity — including one that involved the use of a woman’s name.

As quoted by Sportskeeda, Rhyno discussed several topics during his recent appearance on Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast, including WWE’s purported creative plans after he arrived from ECW, a company that shut down in 2001. The 44-year-old grappler recalled that WWE officials wanted him to rock a blond hairdo and to appear as Edge and Christian’s younger brother. The duo — who are best friends with no real-life blood relation — shut it down.

“They [WWE] wanted to dye my hair [blond] and make me their little brother,” Rhyno was quoted as saying. “They [Edge and Christian] were like, ‘He looks nothing like us, we’re tall and lanky and he’s short and stocky.’ Could you imagine having to dye your hair [blond] all the time? Especially having dark hair.”

In addition, the former WWE mainstay told Jericho that the promotion’s creative team had several unusual ideas for his ring name as a newcomer, including one where he’d seemingly be named after a Marvel supervillain and another where he’d be given a traditionally common female name.

“They were kicking around different ideas [for names] – Juggernaut was one and the worst one was Mary.”

While Rhyno added that he didn’t understand why he’d be called Mary after he’d had such a dominant run in ECW, it was pointed out by Sportskeeda that WWE ultimately allowed him to go by his old moniker of Rhino — albeit with a slightly different spelling.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Rhyno was one of several WWE superstars who left the company in 2019 and had memorably appeared on Impact Wrestling’s Slamniversary pay-per-view shortly before his WWE contract was due to expire on July 17. During his second of two runs with Vince McMahon’s promotion, the 300-pounder had an unlikely run alongside Heath Slater as one-half of the inaugural SmackDown Tag Team Champions in 2016. When he parted ways with WWE, however, he was hardly utilized on television and was quite open to the public about not wanting to re-sign.