Jeff Cobb Recalls Process Of Getting His WWE Name, Unprofessional Meeting With Canyon Ceman

Jeff Cobb continues to peel back the layers of his time in WWE.

Despite being a major signing from the world of New Japan Pro Wrestling, Jeff Cobb’s WWE tenure lasted just shy of one year. Upon his arrival, the star was given the name “JC Mateo” and was put into one of SmackDown’s most key stables at the time via the MFTs, though his televised in-ring time was limited and he’d eventually depart the company in May of this year. Now, he’s reflected on both the process of being renamed by WWE, and how he was initially put off of signing with them.

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, he noted that just the process of his being named JC Mateo was an experience that even made other wrestlers laugh.

“The day that I flew into St. Louis, well, actually the day of the PLE, Backlash, I went backstage and met everybody, met the writers, and then they gave me two pages of names. I haven’t released them yet, but I think it’s pretty funny. At that time I was like what the hell? The first page, I’ll say it was maybe 60 names on there. I was like okay, this is pretty cool, pretty cool. They’re trying to go into my background with Guam, my background in Hawaii. I was like, okay. Second page, I don’t know what happened. It just started doing random names. I was like, How are they choosing this? One that stuck out made me giggle because it was all caps, JONAH [which Bronson Reed used to have]. The guy that’s in your company. I was like, wait a minute, are you guys even trying now? Drew [McIntyre] was like, ‘Oh, what’s this?’ I was like, ‘Oh, this is my list of names.’ He’s like, ‘Can I see this?’ Yeah, sure. He looked at them, he’s on the second page. He saw one. He’s like, ‘I like this one.’ I was like, ‘Well, we’re not using that.’ He signed it, so it’s a Drew McIntyre authentic signature, which I’m not gonna sell because it’s funny, but it was Jafar Smash. I said, ‘What?’ So every time I saw Drew without hesitation I was like, ‘What’s up, Drew?’ He’s like, ‘What’s up, Jafar?’ I was like wait, Jafar is neither a Polynesian name, a Hawaiian name, nor a Guam name. I don’t know where that came from.”

-Jeff Cobb

Name changes are something fans of WWE have become accustomed to in recent history. While some get to keep their name upon signing and others don’t, decisions to rebrand are usually made so the company can own the rights to their presentation. However, that wasn’t the only complaint Cobb had to air.

Elsewhere in the interview, Cobb discussed WWE trying multiple times to recruit him, including right after he made his AEW debut against Jon Moxley. Another time, though, he turned them down because of the unprofessionalism of one of their recruiters.

“Canyon Ceman at the time. I don’t know if he was in charge of… I don’t know what he was doing. But what turned me off was when I had a Zoom call with him… when he called me, and he was in the bed in boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I was like, ‘What the hell?’ And then what he said was he told me there was three tiers in NXT at the time for pay structure. And then the one line that got me that made me say no was, ‘Well unlike other companies, we pay our talent during the pandemic.’ And I said, ‘You know, you didn’t have to say that line.’ That turned me off, too. I was like, I don’t really want to work with somebody like that who’s gonna make a statement like that.”

-Jeff Cobb

It should be noted that many promotions did their best to pay their talent during the pandemic. In fact, reports from the time suggest NJPW, Cobb’s home before heading to WWE, pledged full salaries and benefits to its employees as the pandemic was coming into full effect across the world.

Since departing WWE, Cobb re-signed with NJPW, returning in August 26 to stand against his former United Empire stablemates. Instead, he chose to align with Unbound Co., fitting back in among the roster after his brief spell as part of SmackDown.

For more WWE news, you can click here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Jeff Cobb as soon as we hear more.

H/T to ChrisVanVliet.com for the quote relating to choosing his WWE name.

If you use the Canyon Ceman quote above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to WrestlePurists.com for the transcription.