Sean Waltman explains how he became ‘Syxx-Pac’ in WCW.
Waltman was a guest on this week’s episode of The Bump in honor of the nWo’s 25th anniversary, and he was asked about the origins of his WCW name. Waltman joined the company soon after the group debuted and made quite the impact, winning the WCW Cruiserweight and Tag Team Championship. Asked about the origins of the ‘Syxx-Pac’ name, Waltman explained that Hulk Hogan gave him the moniker, but some of the newer wrestlers took inspiration from Tupac Shakur and modernized it a bit.
“Hulk [Hogan] used to call me ‘Six Pack’ because you know, he liked to drink beer. Like a six-pack of beer. [laughs] But then, my younger friends like the Lucha guys, Konnan and all them,” he explained, “they changed it to ‘Pac’ and it was ‘Syxx-Pac.’”
On a related note, Waltman also spoke with Chris Van Vliet about his arrival in WCW and how he was first given the name ‘Syxx’ before the ‘Pac’ was added later on. Waltman told Van Vliet (via Inside The Ropes) that Eric Bischoff gave him the name and knows the story about adding up the numbers, but never confirmed it with Bischoff.
“So when I came to WCW, Eric Bischoff named me Syxx. People were like, ‘what does that mean?’ Well, ‘one plus two plus three equals six.’ I still don’t really know the answer to that,” Waltman said. “I don’t remember Eric ever confirming where he got it from.”
Waltman also mentioned Hogan’s “six-pack” name, then talked about some of the other ideas Vince McMahon pitched while he was still in WWE.
“When I left, Vince was trying to figure out a name for me. He knew I didn’t want to be called ‘Kid’ anymore. He goes ‘Well what if we called you ‘The Man?’’ This was before Becky Lynch by the way. I’m like [sucks teeth] I’m not really feeling it, man. But he would throw out ideas, and if you weren’t a fan of it, you wouldn’t hurt his feelings.”
