Finn Balor is finally clearing the air on that whole “Street Trash” story, and according to him, WWE was never actually planning to erase The Judgment Day’s name.
The rumor had been floating around in 2024, when reports claimed WWE was considering rebranding the post-Rhea Ripley version of The Judgment Day as “Street Trash.” Fans hated the idea almost immediately, and the backlash made it sound like WWE had backed off a full name change. Balor now says that was never really the plan.
While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Balor explained that “Street Trash” came from a GUNTHER promo during a program involving Dominik Mysterio. GUNTHER called the group that on television, and Judgment Day simply leaned into it for a while.
“No, so that came from there being a program with Gunther — I think it was Gunther and Dom — and he referred to us all as street trash. We said, ‘Let’s just lean into it. We’re The Judgment Day. We’re street trash.’”
That makes the whole situation sound a lot less like a scrapped rebrand and more like WWE testing a line from TV to see if it had any life. Balor admitted they tried to run with it, but the phrase just never stuck with fans.
“We kind of just leaned into it, but it didn’t really catch on, yeah. People remember things like Bullet Club and The Demon — they don’t remember things like Street Trash. It’s not all home runs.”
The Judgment Day name stayed because that was always the identity. “Street Trash” may have briefly made its way into the group’s presentation, but Balor made it clear it was never in the same league as Bullet Club or The Demon when it came to actually connecting with people.
So for anyone still wondering how close WWE came to renaming one of its biggest factions, Balor’s answer is pretty simple: not very. Street Trash was a swing, it missed, and The Judgment Day moved on.
Do you think WWE should have done more with the Street Trash idea, or was it better left behind? Let us know in the comments.
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