Ari Daivari underwent a slight name change when fully signing with All Elite Wrestling.
Prior to this summer, Daivari primarily performed under his real name of Ariya. AEW President Tony Khan soon suggested a small tweak though. Beginning in July, Daivari ran under a new first name: Ari. In speaking on AEW Unrestricted, the star explained what lead to his name change.
“It was just a small detail that Tony really liked,” he said. “I know he’s a big fan of the show Entourage, and he’s a fan of the character Ari Gold. He was like, ‘Oh, Ariya. Ari. I think that’s kind of cool.’ I actually kind of liked that too, because as much as I love using my real name in pro wrestling, it gets butchered all the time. Ring announcers, commentary and my debut on RAW, Michael Cole f-cked up my name. It was just, my name gets butchered all the time. So Ari seems to be a lot easier. People are more familiar with it so it doesn’t get butchered left and right.”
“[It gets butchered] all the time. Uh-rye-uh Daivari, Air-ee-uh Daivari. I understand, when you see it on paper, you’re kind of like, ‘Oh sh**, I’m gonna just take the best swing at this I can, you know?’ So I totally understand.”
Before entering AEW, Daivari competed in WWE under his real name throughout his tenure in the company “It was kind of cool that I got to wrestle in WWE as my real name and everything,” he continued. “They wanted to capitalize on any sort of buzz anybody had in the Cruiserweight Classic. They said everyone gets to keep their real names, which is pretty unprecedented. Guys were getting their names changed and stuff like that, so I kind of thought any moment now they’re going to change my name and they never did.”
Working With Orange Cassidy
In August, Daivari wrestled Orange Cassidy in the main event of AEW: Rampage. There, the two garnered great buzz for their match, as they were accompanied by their respective tag team partners. Daivari explained his thoughts on the match and praised Cassidy for making his debut a great one.
“So the interesting about thing about that is I remember I saw the news article,” he said. “It said like ‘the highest rated Rampage since April.’ You know, it was a long time. I know there are some people saying what it was leading into Rampage and all that kind of stuff. The way I looked at it, the Trustbusters had had enough buzz because that match was announced a few days before. If people were disinterested in seeing that match, they wouldn’t have tuned in, as simple as that.
“I think a lot of people want to see what these Trustbusters (his tag team) are about,” he continued. “You’re wrestling someone as talented and as popular as Orange Cassidy, who I’ve known for a long time. I knew him from the independent days and stuff like that. So getting a chance to work with him was so creative, so different. I was very excited to work with him, mainly because of that. A lot of guys I do feel like these days do wrestle kind of similarly or they can fall into similar tropes.”
“Orange Cassidy is a whole different ball game. I didn’t know what I was going to get into. So getting to work with him on the main event of Rampage in my hometown and knowing it drew a big rating and knowing it was like my first big opportunity as the Trustbusters, I don’t think I could ask for a better debut in AEW.”
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