WWE Unreal Director Chris Weaver Explains Why Wrestlers Share All Their Names In The Series

Chris Weaver, the director of WWE Unreal, talks with Fightful about the decision to have wrestlers introduce themselves using the various names they are known by and to create typography graphics displaying all those names when they first reveal themselves on the show.

The world of professional wrestling blurs the lines between reality and fiction. As a result, some wrestlers are primarily known by their stage names rather than their real names. Over time, their nicknames multiply, and they might be called various names behind the scenes. For example, CM Punk’s real name is Phil Brooks. So, he might be known as Punk, Punker, Phil, or even Pepsi Phil. On the other hand, John Cena’s given name is John Cena, and he portrays a character named John Cena on TV.

The WWE Unreal series on Netflix offers a rare look into WWE’s creative process. As such, performers were encouraged to reveal some of themselves behind the scenes. Therefore, when they were stating their many names during their introduction scenes.

In an interview with Fightful’s Joel Pearl and Jeremy Lambert, series director Chris Weaver revealed that the idea for the performers to clarify their given names, stage names, and any nicknames originated from working with Paul Levesque, also known as Triple H, Hunter, and Trips. Weaver said that he was concerned about casual fans potentially getting confused with all the different names that Triple H might be called. As an example of what he was afraid of, some crew members were initially confused.

“This came about because when we first started meeting with Hunter and filming, people call Paul, they call him Hunter, Triple H, Trips. I was a little concerned about the casual fan dropping in (and being confused). What would happen is we would go shoot an event and tell the crew, ‘You’re going to do this with Paul.’ ‘I thought I was doing that with Hunter.’ ‘It’s the same guy.’ That was the genesis for it. I wanted the audience to know that if you hear Paul, Hunter, Triple H, there is no narrator, so how do we explain that? I did it with Hunter and the very first interview I was like, ‘Just explain to the world that you go by all these names.’ We did with him first and then it became, ‘We should do that with all of them. Let’s ask and see what they say.’ We didn’t force them to give their names.

“Punk was probably the next interview we did, and it was awesome because he gave us several names. Jey had a story about, ‘I was going to go by this, but they changed it the day before.’ It was sort of an idea born out of necessity. We had a conversation about the lower-third, ‘Do we write their real name, wrestling name, both?’ It came about that way. I love the way it came out and the idea of giving you the character name and their government name to add a little more to the human side, so hopefully you’re seeing the more authentic side of Phil Brooks and not just CM Punk. If the show keeps going, hopefully, we can get other people to detail their name or give other answers. Will Penta tell you his real name? I doubt it, but we’re going to ask him and see what he says. Sometimes, good ideas come out of necessity like that.”

The entire series is now available to binge-watch on Netflix. However, if you’re excited to explore the stories from the series, you can click here to see what the top headlines are about the docuseries.

Elsewhere in the interview, Weaver opened up about the possibility of a second season for the series. Read his comments here.

Check out the full interview with Chris Weaver embedded above.