Ricky Saints Brings Bayou Spirit to WWE After AEW

A storm brewing in the world of professional wrestling has finally been unleashed. Louisiana's own Ricky Saints (f.k.a. Ricky Starks) has made his jump to the WWE.

New Orleans' Own Pro Wrestling Star

Ricky Saints is a professional wrestler who's been working his way up from whatever independent wrestling company would book him, to being to most talked about star in pro wrestling right now. From New Orleans, Louisiana, Ricky went by the ring name Ricky Starks as he began his career, wrestling mostly in Texas for smaller wrestling promotions.

Ricky was born in New Orleans, which may have been one of the greatest things to happen to his career in wrestling. Ricky garnered a following on the independent wrestling scene for his cocky, arrogant, and charismatic attitude, which many claim draws inspirement from great pro wrestling figures like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. But Ricky says that's not the case, instead his attitude and style he says are influenced by the culture and attitude of the New Orleans he grew up in.

Ricky Starks And Fallout With All Elite Wrestling

In June of 2020 Ricky Starks would be signed to the recently started competitor to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Ricky would quickly become a favorite with fans of the alternative wrestling promotion, winning both the AEW World Tag Team Championship once and the FTW Championship once as he climbed his way up the roster.

During a tag team match on March 30th, 2024 at an AEW Collision show, Ricky was injured during a match, thankfully it would prove a minor injury and he would need very little time to recover. However, this would be the last match Ricky Starks would ever wrestle for All Elite Wrestling.

Ricky would spend the next almost year on the shelf, not being utilized by AEW while taking what independent bookings he could. Rumors ran rampant across the internet that something had happened between Ricky Starks and the management of AEW. As the months went on it became more publicly known that Starks was unhappy with his position in AEW, at one point asking to be let go from the company.

Ricky Starks Changes His Name to Honor NOLA

On February 10th, 2025, after nearly a full year of sitting on the shelf, AEW cut Ricky Starks from their roster, along with a group of other underutilized wrestlers. Even more surprising to the pro wrestling world was only a day later on WWE's NXT Ricky Starks would crash the show announcing he would be coming to AEW's top competitor.

Though many fans were excited, others were worried because not once on the entire episode of NXT did anyone refer to Ricky by name. This led fans to worry that WWE would be changing his stage name, a practice WWE has done in the past to little fanfare. This week on NXT Ricky Starks cleared the air and declared his new name, Ricky Saints.

After the show, Ricky did an interview with Busted Open Radio where he was asked about his new name. Saints reassured fans that even if the name has changed "the person doesn't change." The name was Ricky's way of paying respects to his hometown of New Orleans, "I think it's cool to have a piece of home with me."