Ivar, of the War Raiders, expressed contentment with WWE’s decision to gradually phase out his character’s Viking aspects, an initiative suggested by Triple H.
Upon their first appearance on the main roster, Ivar and Erik were introduced as The Viking Experience. The moniker was subsequently altered to The Viking Raiders.
In October of the current year, both wrestlers made a comeback from their respective injuries, and were referred to as The War Raiders, their earlier alias in NXT.
During the recent episode of the “Insight” podcast, Ivar recounted the moment when he was informed about WWE’s intention to lessen the Viking elements of their characters. He quoted,
“When I had this opportunity of doing the singles run and everything was going smoothly, I had this discussion with Triple H. He said, ‘Hey, how about we start to gradually pull back from the heavy Viking stuff, slowly removing some of those layers so as to develop more narratives with you?’ I responded, ‘That sounds perfect.’”
Moreover, Ivar mentioned unplanned changes regarding him after his injury, leading WWE to postpone their TV return. He quoted,
“I was injured again, subsequently, Erik and I were set to return. Our comeback was actually scheduled in Calgary at Raw. At the last minute, they withdrew our travel arrangement and disclosed that they’re going to postpone it for the time being. They reassured us, ‘No, it’s nothing serious. We want to delay it as we want to have improved creative concepts for you.’ And then the following week, we got a phone call asking, ‘Hey, how do you guys feel about returning as The War Raiders?’ And we responded, ‘That sounds excellent. That really sounds good.’”
In this week’s WWE RAW episode, The War Raiders took home the World Tag Team Titles, beating Finn Balor & JD McDonagh, marking their first title win in half a decade.