On Monday, Apollo Crews appeared to become "Apollo", sans his former last name. He'll be following in the footsteps of performers like Cesaro, Rusev, Elias and Big E, all of whom had their last names dropped in what many believe is an effort by WWE to simplify things.
For Apollo, however, there may be more to this story than a simple shortening of his name. One thing that separates him from these other performers is speculation that his former last name could have lead fans to make a connection between WWE and the Parkland, Florida gunman and 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz. While the name is spelled differently, the two names are pronounced the same way and WWE wants no part of any potential link between a young man who killed 17 students and teachers with an AR-15 rifle and one of the WWE Superstars.
While it hasn't been confirmed this is sole the reason for the name change, it does seem like more than coincidental timing considering WWE had recently aired an angle with Titus Worldwide creating the "Crews Can't Lose" catchphrase. There is also news of an email coming out of WWE headquarters confirming Vince McMahon was disgusted by hearing the name after the shooting took place and immediately wanted it changed.
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What can be confirmed is that WWE will be going by Apollo moving forward. The company has changed the roster section of his profile at WWE.com, his name on Twitter is different and during Raw's broadcast, he was referred to as Apollo, including when mentioned on social media.
This is just one many changes Apollo seems to be undergoing. Hopefully, this name change and Vince's association to the tragedy doesn't affect any push WWE had planned for Apollo as he was just starting to gain some momentum on WWE programming. Right now WWE appears to be pushing Apollo and Titus toward a chance at the Raw Tag Team Titles. One has to wonder if the name change may affect any of those plans.