The past two days I have witnessed two name changes that are head scratchers at best. Both are sports athletes and both changed their name in some way to their respective nicknames. Both have been called insane as well.
2121566490_aa6229d658_m When Did Name Changing Become Cool? War Machine and Ocho Cinco
The first is the MMA fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver. He appeared on The Ultimate Fighter 6 and was liked by many after his bloody bout with Jared Rollins. He was also called a “head case” by Matt Serra his coach.

Jon Koppenhaver doesn’t give a crap what anyone thinks, if you ever read his myspace he comes off as an interesting character. Anyway his name change stems from TNA wrestling attempting to trademark the name (who also has a TV deal with Spike but apparently aren’t too friendly) according to 411mania.

Here is the newly named War Machine’s statement:

“Turns out some gay ass wrestling federation threatened to sue them because they recently named one of their wrestlers The War Machine Rhino and trademarked the name. If you know my personality than you know damn well I am not gonna let some faggot ass fake wrestler steal my name.”

Apparently that was on his myspace before and predictably a statement using the words faggot or gay ass from any worker of a professional company like the UFC was pulled. Alas, this is the internet and nothing is ever deletable ;). Of course War Machine won’t be fired as Dana White usually lets things slide.

Otherwise apparently a way to curb a trade marketing rule is to simply change it to your real name.

This isn’t the first time someone has changed their name to something “ridiculous” it occurs a lot in pro wrestling but I definitely haven’t seen it in football.
chadjohnsonpic When Did Name Changing Become Cool? War Machine and Ocho Cinco

Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson is now officially Chad Javon Ocho Cinco. Johnson err.. Mr. Ocho Cinco is making some headlines and it’s worth noting that the NFL is FORCED to make Ocho Cinco jerseys which will definitely be a hot commodity in the NFL. I can’t see the NFL not following this ingenious marketing scheme because many players change their names all the time (see Lew Alcindor or many other players changing their names to Arabic names).

Hopefully when Michael Vick gets out of jail, he decides to change his name to Ron Mexico. Otherwise I don’t think this is the last of name changing we’ve seen, they might’ve started a trend.