The former AEW Star Ricky Starks joined WWE in February and promptly underwent a name change to become Ricky Saints.
After months of being unused by Tony Khan, Ricky Starks is (alongside Miro and Malakai Black) was released from his promotion on February 11th, 2025. The following day Ricky Starks made his surprise debut on NXT and the next week became known as Ricky Saints.
Whole the name change isn’t that bad as if reflects his New Orleans heritage, but it left some fans confused as to why it happened especially when one considers other former AEW talents such as Jad Cargill and Ethan Page got to keep their names.
Now a report from PWInsider has shed some light the change from Starks to Saint. The outlet states that the company simply altered his surname for trademark purposes.
Ricky Saints Has Spoken About His AEW Exit And Creative Tensions Backstage
Saints appeared on Busted Open Radio and spoke about a number of topics, including his time in AEW. When addressing his absence from TV, Saints could not pinpoint where things went wrong but noted there could be a number of factors, adding that he never rejected ideas or attempted to sabotage anything:
“I can’t tell you exactly what the moment was. You could say it was Punk leaving and things kinda fell apart. Absolutely, I probably agree with you on that, alright? Or you could say is that Ricky didn’t play the politics well enough. Alright, for sure…there’s so many things you can say.
What I can say for myself is that when I got hurt in March, that was it, I never came back. And even then, I wasn’t hurt, it was a precaution thing where I got scared as I had a stinger. Then I was fine. After that, no, no dice, no communication. No nothing. And that is okay because….I ended up here. And it’s fine. Everything worked out.
I don’t know explicitly where it went wrong, I can’t point to one thing. I can say it was a storm of things probably. Did I do something that may have tipped them off? Sure, asking for my release whenever you know, this past whatever, that could have been about it right? But never once was I not willing to do something, never once was I sabotaging anything.”
When asked by Bully Ray if he thought the release was personal, Saints admitted that it likely was, noting that some veterans “stuck their nose” in his creative:
“I will say this, there are some people who stuck their nose in my creative business that shouldn’t have happened. Veterans. And that’s it, I’ll leave it at that. And if they got a problem with me, they got my number. And text me about it. I think what it was is if it didn’t work for their creative, then someone had to get the boot. That’s how I see it.
But I’m not trying to be negative in my thought process about it…if you want to step on me to get ahead in your illustrious career, everyone has an illustrious career. Everyone should have an illustrious career. That is perfectly fine. But at the same time, I’m not wet behind my ears.”