Friday’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown featured Pete Dunne’s official call-up to WWE’s main roster. During a backstage interview segment, Sheamus introduced Dunne, now under the ring name of Butch, as a long time friend of his and Ridge Holland.
Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that word starting going around backstage on Friday afternoon of “something very dumb” being planned for that night’s episode of SmackDown. It was reported that while Dunne’s name was not mentioned, they were told that this plan involved an already well known talent by many backstage undergoing a new name change. It was also reported that this new name was something that caused some frustration backstage by those who heard of it prior to the reveal on the show.
A few non-WWE talents reportedly knew of this name change for Dunne as far back as this past Thursday. These same talents stated that they speculated Dunne’s new name could be a rib related to WWE Hall of Famers The Bushwackers, Butch and Luke. Their reasoning revolved around “Luke” being Holland’s real first name.