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The Ascension, Descended

So apparently Kenneth Cameron of the Ascension was arrested for a DUI and fired, thus breaking up the Ascension team.  Yeah, it's a shame for the tag division and another black eye on the "young wrestlers in WWE just hang out in hotel rooms and play video games" nonsense, but really, the biggest WTF thing for me is that his real name is Tom Latimer.  What kind of butt-ass stupid writing system do they have when the best wrestling name they can come up with someone is KENNETH CAMERON?!  I had just assumed that name was so stupid that it had to be his real one, but no, someone actually thought that was a better name than "Tom Latimer".  Why not "Lazarus" instead of "Latimer", which at least kind of sounds like his real name and would play better into the mysterious heel team gimmick?  Even sillier, his partner Conor O'Brian's real name is Ryan Parmeter, which at least sounds more exotic and dangerous than a play on a talk show host.  

I would seriously sit at home and think up awesome wrestling names for these goofs if WWE would pay me for it, because I seriously couldn't do any worse with only 15 seconds of thought than they do.

Comments

  1. It's not even Ken, it's fucking KENNETH! I can't get over that. Why does every NXT guy have to have a first and last name? Cameron by itself is a perfectly acceptable wrestling name. And not to condone what he did, but pre Benoit, WWE doesn't even blink an eye to this.

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  2. Yeah. As bad as those names sound, Ryback now sounds so much better off because of it, and I usually don't like gimmick names like that.

    What's worse is that whenever you think of marketing, one of the things you have to think of is to stand out. Even if some names sound stupid, standing out still works as long as it's not in a bad way. Did creative really thing that "KENNETH CAMERON" would be a name that goes down as one of those guys that you need to buy their products? At least with Kassius Ohno, you market him as the K.O. Kid or something (at least that's what I've heard of them doing, I may be way wrong). What is Kenneth Cameron's claim to fame, being Kirk Cameron's family member?

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  3. I think this is an opportune moment for me to mention that there's a Toronto-area indy wrestler with the name "Rip Impact" which has to be the most terrible fake name in the history of wrestling. And I hope he reads this.

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  4. It's not just the boring Joe-Schmo names, it's the lack of nicknames to go along with them.

    Jake Roberts and Steve Austin are pretty boring names by themselves. 'The Snake' and 'Stone Cold' make them awesome

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  5. My real name is better than their wrestling name

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  6. The NXT names sound like a bunch of accountants. It's kind of hard to get excited about guys named Cory Graves and Jake Carter.


    Think of it like this: what sounds more intimidating and interesting:


    Savage
    Hulk
    Warrior


    or


    Cameron
    Woods
    Rollins

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  7. "Kenneth"? Who the hell thought THAT was acceptable?

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  8. They should just use the Metal Gear Solid nickname generator.

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  9. Sadly, mine is not.

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  10. So, do they take someone else from the NXT roster to replace Cameron and reboot the Ascension? If so, who?

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  11. if TNA and WWE would be on the same level, the latter would probably sign him just to mess with their competition.

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  12. Unfortunately, the name Cameron by itself is taken by the Drunkadactyl.

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  13. Well, Rollins is actually a good name for him because it's a reference to a punk musician.

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  14. What exactly gave WWE the idea to give their wrestlers real-sounding fake names? Was this just some attempt to copy one of UFC's disadvantages?

    One of WWE's dumbest moves was changing Leakee's name to "Roman Reigns" before he debuted on the main roster. The name Leakee was much more marketable and they could trademark it anyway. How long will it be until the WWE Champion is some guy they call "John Smith" whose real name would actually be a good wrestling name?

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  15. This story shows how out of touch i am with wrestling now. I have no idea who this guy is or who Ascension is. Are they on Smackdown?

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  16. But drop the Adam and add a Man and it's awesome.

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  17. Yet you still spend hours trolling people who do watch.

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  18. Roman Reigns is a great name.

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  19. The greatest name-related tragedy in WWE is still that Husky Harris's real name is Windham Rotundo, and yet they won't let him use it. Now he's Bray Wyatt, which his better, but not by much.

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  20. See, now "Graves" by itself is a perfectly acceptable wrestling name, especially if they slot him into the Ascension team. "Cory Graves" not so much.

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  21. How could you forget about Tamina Snuka, daughter of WWE Hall Of Famer Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka?

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  22. Windham Rotundo sounds like the name of a guy who was grown in a lab to be WWE champion, so naturally it has to be changed.

    Actually, I'm surprised Vince hasn't decided that their most successful star was Steve Austin, so everyone coming up needs a city for their last name. "Jonny Boston," "Mike Chicago," or "Eddie Los Angeles."

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  23. Funny enough, Magnum Tokyo is a great name, but you're completely right in that Vince would take that too far. I'm surprised Cena wasn't Johnny Boston when he first started, come to think of it.

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  24. Don't know about you, but I think Tom Latimer is the best wrestling name ever.

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  25. Pot, meet Kettle.

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  26. For the millionth time, having different tastes is not trolling.

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  27. My real name is Kenneth Cameron. 8..(

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  28. Any wrestler with the first name Cory deserves a Vader powerbomb on the concrete.

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  29. Not if you were managed by Tiger Ali Singh!

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  30. Or just Roman itself would work. Like "Batista".

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  31. First of all.


    Tom Latimer- Sounds like a news anchor
    Ryan Parmeter- Sounds like the alter-ego of a weather-based super hero, who doubles as a weather-man.


    Both are the real names of
    Fun
    Athletic
    Guys

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  32. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwRssm7cmVc

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  33. What? Never realised Snuka had a daughter, let alone in the WWE. Are you sure you've got your facts straight?

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  34. Eddie LA is about as awesome as David McKickflip

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  35. Omg lol. Dougie you're priceless bro!

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  36. They could give Daniels the worst of these stupid developmental name and he's still be awesome.

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  37. Windham Rotundo sounds like advice you'd shout out to a fat guy in a bar fight.

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  38. Man-Curry? The gimmick sorta...speaks for itself.

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  39. I was a bit bummed out to hear of his termination. The Ascension videos floating on youtube from NXT are damn awesome--they are different, dark and cool; something that NOTHING in wrestling is anymore. It felt like a throwback to the Russo motif in 97-99--which was much darker (and hip) than the campy "Fandango" and "Damien Sandow" cartoon characters of today. I'm assuming WWE creative would have scrapped their NXT characters once they were called up and made them goofy lumberjacks that smiled all the time. It's a shame that their vision is so tunnel based now.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mjuZsFTFDY

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  40. The guys are dark for the sake of being dark. Honestly I found the whole idea just boring. At least a guy like Damien Sandow tries to make a point with his promos and his actions. The Ascension promos were just full of hot-air and vague statements. It's just as bad a victim of tunnel vision as anything else you see on TV.

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  41. You have a point, and I agree, but these videos were just teasers--it's up to the writers/creative team to give them some depth and issues with other characters. I just wanted to make a point that the videos were different and not the normal "camp" of WWE today. BTW, Damien Sandow's character is going the way of Alberto--the same promo for months and months to the point nobody gives a damn anymore.

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  42. and he's a cutie too!!

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  43. I know you of all people should not be talking about trolling. No wonder nobody likes you.

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  44. Your mom likes me.

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  45. You get a plus for dropping the charade.

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  46. Pretty sure they've called her Eve Torres a fair number of times.

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  47. I think that, to an extent, the name thing is subjective. Kenneth Cameron sounds generic, but with a personality and a cool nickname--developed organically over time, a la The Rattlesnake or The Mastadon--it's perfectly suitable. If nothing else, it's a name that's easy to recognize and pronounce. I think it is an improvement over Tom Latimer, if only to a small extent. The only names that I'm really opposed to are the ones that sound outright silly, like Dolph Ziggler or the clunky Michael McGillicutty. There should be someone with a marketing degree on staff who can step in right away in those instances and explain the difficulties in branding these phonetic combinations. They sound like they're right off of Krusty the Clown's funny words list.

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  48. Vader did spend some time on "Boy Meets World", so maybe not.

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  49. If nothing else, it doubles as a pretty solid catchphrase.

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  50. If it's true that we're getting "Girl Meets World" with Daughter of Corey Matthews, they need to go the extra mile and feature Son of Vader as a recurring guest star.

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  51. I hate the whole 1 name thing. It just sounds awkward to me--especially when it's just a first name, like Sheamus. I keep waiting for them to finish when they announce him. How about if Hulk Hogan had simply been Hulk or Randy Savage was just Randy? Looking at the guys gimmick, he had kind of a gothy thing going on, I think Kenneth actually matched him. It has an air of formality. Trust me, if they had brought him in and simply called him Cameron, nobody would have been happy with that either. There would have been a lot of "Who's his tag team partner, Ferris Bueller?" comments.

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  52. Hillbilly Jim is another guy that needed a last name.

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  53. Fun Athletic Guy Squad should have been the name for the Spirit Squad.

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  54. We don't know what your tastes are, you spend your time bashing others for theirs though.

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  55. Leakee? As in leaky faucet?



    At least Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose sound better than their actual names, Colby Lopez and Jonathan Good.

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  56. So let me get this straight, an NXT guy gets fired for a DUI, but Cameron, a girl who's gimmick is basically dancing with Brodus Clay during his entrance, only got a 15 day suspension for a DUI, bribery, and lying about her job because she didn't want to the WWE to find out about the DUI?

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  57. No, the NXT guy got fired because he got arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer after said officer confronted him about his drunken behavior. If he just cooperated with the officer instead of hitting him he probably would have at worst a trip to WWE sponsored rehab.

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  58. The Damien Sandow character could have been goofy, lame, and corny but Aaron Stevens plays it so well that he is getting some good heel heat out of it. It really is about the performer making the gimmick work.

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  59. Isn't Vader's son in developmental?

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  60. I like to think of Jim as his last name.

    Also, come to think of it a Ferris Bueller gimmick would be awesome... although I suppose that is kind of along the lines of Cena's smug, mugging, troublemaker character.

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  61. Yes...its the Jake Carter mentioned at the top of the thread.

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  62. Kelly Kelly. Wait a minute . . .

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  63. Yurp, DUI's are nothing to WWE, assaulting the police? That's something completely different.

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  64. Lita...Xtreme?


    Y'know, in the whole Lita/Edge marriage thing, what would they be? Neither have a fucking last name. Though considering Christian and Edge were brothers, and Christian's full name is Christian Cage, I guess he's Edge Cage? And she'd then be Lita Cage. That's...actually fucking awesome.

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  65. Colby Lopez sounds like the newest Disney pop star.



    And no wrestler's name should sound similar to a Daily Show correspondent. So better Dean than that.

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  66. Damien has one major advantage, he's a native english speaker, so he can improv his promos better than somebody like ADR, who's reliant on writers for promos.


    But I agree, they need to have somebody stand up to Damien, like...cut actual promos about why they disagree with Sandow's attitude, so they can actually have dueling ideologies and shit like that.

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  67. That's funny. I love the reason and the history of the name but I think Windham is an awful first name.

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  68. Katelyn is actually one of the few women who uses her real last name, Bonin, although it shows up on match graphics it is rarely mentioned on TV. Naomi also has a last name (or at least she did in FCW) and it is "Knight" (how creative).

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  69. Yeah but if his name was just Cameron he would get confused with the Funkadactyl of the same name.

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  70. Bonin is a killer porn last name

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  71. Sorry man, but Ax and Smash are far better names than Ax Rogers and Smash Litrell.

    There are several one-name gimmicks that are far, far better than the "NXT Accountant Name List".

    Can you imagine that instead of Kane, Edge and Vader, we had Kane Jacobs, Edge Copeland and Vader White? How successful do you think those personas would have been if those guys had those names instead?

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  72. Agreed, but I'm talking about where it's just a normal name, not a cool gimmick name. For example, how about instead of Daniel Bryan it was just Daniel or instead of John Cena it was just John. Ax, Smash, Hawk, Animal, Warlord, Barbarian, Edge, etc... are all things. Christian, Kane, Vader, etc... are allusions (biblical or pop-culture). Surely you see there's a difference between being called Ax, Edge, or Cameron.

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  73. Agreed about how a normal name should have a first and last name but if you're going to do that, they should at the very least have a catchy, flamboyant nickname. That would be a much better improvement over just having a bland, unmarketable name that makes "Rooster Griffin" seem like a great name.

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  74. You have to be the only person who thinks Leakee was a good name. "Roman Leakee" sounds like a pervy sex thing involving pee.



    Good lord, everyone says they could do better than developmental as far as thinking up names for these guys, but all the suggestions are "Leakee" and "Cameron"? I think people are overestimating.

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  75. "Graves" is alright but it needs a first name, unfortunately "Cory" isn't a good one. I get the sense that name was inspired by Michale Graves of the Misfits, so that's a good thing in my book.

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  76. Speaking of lame NXT names: PAC has been given the name Adrian Neville. It works a little bit since he's British, but still, what a wiener name. It wasn't that long ago they did alright with gimmick names. Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne are great, I don't get why it's so hard for the Florida crew to pull off.

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  77. We also have indy wrestlers around here named Kwan Chang, Sexxxy Eddy, Quinson Valentine, Kryss Thorn, Blackjack Phoenix, Ryot and The Sniper. Some of the indy names are so much cooler then the WWE can dream of.

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  78. Who? Neidhart? Seriously? I thought he was in legal trouble. Sorry, couldn't resist the Who joke. That shit never grows old, like the old arrow through the head joke.

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