Elias was recently a guest on the Steve Austin Show podcast. During the podcast, he spoke on a wide variety of topics about his wrestling career so far.
One of the interesting topics brought up was about the origins of Elias’ name. As you likely already know, WWE shortened his name from ‘Elias Samson’ to just ‘Elias’.
Elias says that ‘Samson’ came from the bible. When he was coming up with ideas, he pitched a wide variety of names like Joseph, Abel & Cash (since he loves Johnny Cash).
Elias says that he picked ‘Elias Samson’ after being given a list of names. He says that the name stood out to him and he liked it.
He says that the “man in charge at the time” hated the name. Also, Gerald Briscoe told him backstage that WWE would change the name “soon enough” after he first heard it.
Elias says that dropping ‘Samson’ from his name was not his call. Also, he says that he can’t call himself ‘the Drifter’ anymore:
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“It was not my call. I got up there. Got to Monday Night Raw. And, The Drifter: no longer. No longer call myself that, at least I can’t refer to myself as that, and Samson dropped as well. And these are things I just show up to Monday Night Raw, and they say, ‘Hey. Just so you know, here’s the deal now.’ Ok, fair enough man. I just, I’m still gonna be me and as long as they’re not trying to change who I am or my character – which they’re one in the same anyway, as far as I’m concerned – I’m cool with calling me whatever you call me.”
Let us know what you think in the comment section below. [h/t to Wrestling INC for the quote].