Powerhouse Hobbs Wants To Use Legend's Moniker

During a recent episode of the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, AEW superstar Powerhouse Hobbs joined hosts Lars Frederiksen and Dennis Farrell to talk about the praise he received from wrestling icon Butch Reed before he passed away in February of last year. Hobbs revealed inspiring words Reed's son gave him about his work in AEW and teased one day using the "Hacksaw" name Reed made famous.

"I was dropping my son Bam Bam off at pre-school one morning," Hobbs said. "We're at a red light, and I get this Instagram tag, you know, Butch Reed has an Instagram, and he tagged one of my first shirts on it and said 'This is the new PowerHouse.' I geeked out over it so much.

"I sent a message to him and then he replied back to the message, and we exchanged phone numbers but we actually never got the chance to speak. We only chatted through Instagram messaging. I was told by him that he was a huge fan, and that was an honor to me because I had the old WCW Galoob Doom figures, so that meant the world to me ... I actually found out he passed away when I was in the Dallas airport. His son sent me a heartfelt message, you know, his dad was unable to speak, but when he saw me and my in-ring work, he smiled.

"That's something that I will always hold dear to my heart, and if I ever have the opportunity to carry on the Hacksaw name, I'll do that 100%. That's one of my goals."

Hobbs also revealed the origins of the idea to change his name from Will to Powerhouse.

"Originally when I first came into AEW, I did enhancement work, and I was Will Power ... Tony [Khan] came up to me, he's like, 'You're such a powerhouse, we're gonna call you Powerhouse Hobbs.' And he actually said he was thinking of one-word names, and one of the first names that he said was 'Hacksaw.' And then he's like, 'No, you're a powerhouse!' So we've been rolling with that ever since. I've mentioned to Tony a few times that if the opportunity comes up to become Hacksaw, that's something possibly that can happen."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Wrestling Perspective Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.