Tehuti Miles talks about forming the basis of his WWE persona.
Tehuti Miles was briefly known as Ashante “Thee” Adonis in WWE. Part of the group, Hit Row, Adonis was focused on the entertainment portion of pro wrestling having a strong desire to stand out from the pack. His name and presentation were a big part of that and he told the origin story of his WWE name on Casual Conversations with The Wrestling Classic.
Tehuti Miles says his WWE name was inspired by Megan Thee Stallion but it was actually Triple H that came up with the idea of having his name be similar to the famous rapper.
“I had sent [WWE] six different lists of names. 'Ashante' was on one and 'Adonis' was on another,” he recalled. “Triple H came up to me, he was like, ‘What do you think of Ashante ‘Thee’ Adonis, like Megan Thee Stallion?’ I was like, ‘That’s it!’ The name is something that stands out, it's different. [Triple H] is like, ‘Yeah, you're a handsome dude, so Adonis, and I like Ashante.’”
Miles we still trying to put together the look and the mannerisms for Ashante and former WWE Superstar Velveteen Dream helped him find the character by showing him the movie Superfly.
“I've had different approaches to when I was trying to figure out my character,” said Miles. “I've told a lot of people this that are in the PC. You can pull anything from anywhere to add to your character. So when I first started thinking about the character stuff I was thinking like Floyd Mayweather, Cam Newton [for inspiration of] how I want to dress and how I want to act… One day, Velveteen, he told me, because he knew what I was trying to do. so he was like, ‘Watch this movie.’ It's Superfly, the latest one that came out in like 2018. I watched that movie and I was like, ‘That's it. That's exactly what I'm trying to do.’ But in my own way, you know? So like, the hair, the way he dresses, all that stuff comes from that and then I add a little bit of everything that I see. I literally pull stuff from everywhere because you're constantly adding to your character, constantly creating. I can't stay the same. I'm constantly adapting, just like people do in real life.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Tehuti shared what Vince McMahon actually told him about the way to approach WWE. Learn more here.
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