As of September 26, it is official: former AEW star Jade Cargill has signed with WWE. A unique signing should come with special allowances, and WWE should use Jade Cargill’s real name.
Even before Jade’s contract was announced, fans online pointed to WWE trademarking Jadia Parker as the potential WWE name for Cargill. WWE does like to give their talent an in-universe name, one that is not their own and has yet to be used widely in another promotion, so there was some merit to the speculation.
Meanwhile, Jade uses her real name and is an undefeated champion for the promotion’s biggest rival. While it doesn’t appear that Jadia Parker is Cargill’s future name, it was enough to get fans talking about Jade’s debut, if that even is her name when the time comes.
Welcome to WWE, @Jade_Cargill! 🔥👊⚡️ pic.twitter.com/2bpVGmpfu4
— WWE (@WWE) September 26, 2023
Whenever Jade makes her highly anticipated debut with WWE, it should be as Jade Cargill. She is hardly the only major signing that would keep their name from previous promotions, and a bad name can set a talent back regardless of their talent.
Also, a name change for the sake of it doesn’t do much to help the company. Likewise, her personal brand and AEW persona are huge generators of interest and massive reasons why this signing is getting so much attention.
The Biggest Names Always Stick
WWE has made it clear that Jade is a huge signing. To keep in line with the hype behind her, WWE should use Jade Cargill’s real name. Some of the biggest signings in WWE history have kept their names. Goldberg, Sting, AJ Styles, and Shinsuke Nakamura made their names in other companies for years before signing with WWE.
Each one was brought in as a major star, and each kept the name that made them famous. Keeping your name comes with risks for WWE, especially if it is a real name like Jade’s. If that talent leaves, so does all the equity you’ve poured into it. However, some talents are worth the risk, and the name cuts both ways.
Even some of Jade’s AEW counterparts kept their names from their NXT and independent circuit days. Every member of the Undisputed Era, one of NXT’s top acts ever, kept their names and have since moved on to other promotions while using them.
Doing so had no impact on the company, and at the time, brought fans from Ring of Honor and elsewhere to the NXT product and hopefully converted a few new members of the WWE Universe. There is no sure way to bring new or lapsed fans in, but giving them a name they know to follow is an excellent way to do that.
A Name Change Isn’t A Guaranteed Success
WWE, of course, wants to own each of their superstar’s brands for monetization purposes. Sometimes, they change a name from Rocky Maivia to The Rock, and a wrestler’s life changes forever and for the better. All while making WWE loads of money from adoring fans.
There are other times, though, when you become Doudrop or Shorty G. In those situations, a talented performer is stuck in the lower card, fighting fan apathy for years to make their way back into a prominent spot. It can be easy to decide that a fresh image and a new start will give a debuting talent an edge and the company access to a hot new property. History has shown that only sometimes happens.
The reason WWE tries to keep everyone’s persona specific to their universe is profit-sharing. They do not want their time and investment to serve another promotion in the future. The flipside, though, is you don’t have much money to make on a talent that doesn’t have a famous brand. Changing a flailing gimmick or renaming a lower-tier star is a great way to try and revive a career.
Sometimes, it works, like when Adrian Neville dropped his first name. Other times, it doesn’t help. What WWE has to avoid is renaming stars who are ready to print money for them. WWE should use Jade Cargill’s real name because that is the brand poised to make money.
Yes, it could still work out if she becomes Jaida or some other variant, but it makes the journey much harder. Even if they may need to share those profits later, it is still worth the investment to try and capitalize on the fans she already has.
Jade Cargill’s Real Name is Pretty Well Known
Beyond the ring, Jade Cargill has made a name for herself in sports. She was a standout college athlete, a women’s fast-pitch team owner, and has a young family with professional baseball star Brandon Phillips. Jade Cargill has over 900,000 followers on Instagram, with a smaller but impressive following on X of more than 230,000 followers.
Her biography and social metrics show that she has a brand she controls with her own reach to fans online. While WWE can’t manage those accounts, they can use that reach to cross-promote when Jade starts appearing on WWE television. It is a wrestling company, which makes Jade’s more recent past equally relevant.
It is a part of her brand that Jade Cargill has a connection with many AEW fans from her time with that promotion. Jade Cargill went 60 straight matches without a loss and is AEW’s longest-reigning champion ever. Both accolades warrant the big money deal and the red carpet treatment when she finally makes her way to TV.
Part of treating Jade like the star she is involves taking a chance to build on the Cargill brand. Likewise, her past makes her one of the better-known wrestlers than an average independent signing. Many more devoted AEW fans probably have favorites with a significantly higher work rate than Jade.
Still, suppose there is any star that might have caught the attention of a more casual AEW viewer. In that case, the physically impressive and dominant Jade Cargill is very likely. It is probably not the case that WWE was hoping to draw fans away from AEW with the signing, but it is possible. To take full advantage of that, though, WWE has to let Jade’s brand shine and let her keep her identity.
The Name is Just One Piece of the Superstar Puzzle
For all of the reasons above, WWE should use Jade Cargill’s real name. However, just because Jade was a success and is a significant name doesn’t mean her WWE tenure will be. There are a ton of pitfalls for new stars, particularly around the tribal portions of WWE and AEW’s fandoms.
Telling solid stories and making time for Jade and all of the Women on NXT, Raw, or SmackDown will be key to her success in the future. With all of the ways a debut could flop, a random name change that is avoidable is just one less thing for WWE and TKO’s first major signing as a new entity.
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