Did you know that the capitalized D and R in reDRagon was initially done as a shot at Kyle O’Reilly‘s former tag team partner Davey Richards?
Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly of reDRagon were guests on Talk is Jericho to discuss their professional wrestling careers. When asked about the origins of the reDRagon name, Fish said it came to him while he was reading a Jason Ellis book:
“I was reading a Jason Ellis book, and Red Dragon was a skate thing that they had,” Bobby Fish revealed. “I don’t even know why the name just kind of — Kyle and I were going to be heels, and I was trying to think of a way to make people, not like us. Red Dragon to me sounded like I think they were Red Dragons with an S, but Red Dragon to me sounded like a martial arts group that was trying to be cool, but wasn’t cool. Yeah, so I was like, maybe we could use that? And then the way Ring of Honor was putting he and I together had a lot to do with Davey Richards, and this may be the first time I’ve ever admitted this, but when I spelled it, I was like, Well, if we capitalize the D and the R in the middle, it’s kind of a shot there.”
Kyle O’Reilly thinks the spelling of the name looks better stylistically as well, stating:
“And stylistically, it just looks cooler with the word written that way,” Kyle O’Reilly chimed in. “A lowercase R to start it and then a capital D and R halfway through it just makes it look kind of different.”
When asked by Jericho how the name was a shot, Fish said it really wasn’t one at all and explained the reasoning behind the decision:
“It wasn’t [a shot] at all,” Bobby Fish admitted. “Ring of Honor’s idea was breaking him away from Davey, and Davey and Eddie Edwards were the American Wolves. And it made life so easy because they were over so big as a babyface, and we were this new heel team. I mean, I can’t thank them enough for how much that helped us. But we never talked about it.”
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Kyle O’Reilly also briefly revealed why the tag team chose never to wear red.
“People would ask, how come you guys never wear red? That was kind of the thing too,” Kyle O’Reilly said. “We knew we didn’t want to wear red because we breathe fire.”
Bobby Fish credited Chris Jericho’s autobiographies for his attention to detail when it came to the things reDRagon did in Ring of Honor to become heels:
“I think it was from like reading your books, and you had always had such attention to detail,” Bobby Fish said. “According to those about the little things, and I know the little things for something that when I was a fan that I noticed a bunch of what the guys that I followed so like, we started to kind of come up with these little creative things on our own. Knowing that okay, we’re supposed to be heels, we’re going to try to give people every reason not to like us. So we’re like, okay, red is in our team name. We’re never gonna wear red. It was like, confirmation was that at times some of those things were mentioned, and so I think maybe that’s confirmation that it worked on some level. I don’t know.”
Read More: Tony Khan: Reuniting Kyle O’Reilly, Adam Cole And Bobby Fish In AEW Is Absolutely A Dream Come True
What do you make of Fish and O’Reilly’s comments? Did you know the origin of the reDRagon name before today? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Talk is Jericho with a link back to this article for the transcription.
