Kimberly Frankele has been knocking people out (both literally and figuratively) on the independent pro wrestling circuit since 2011, where she’s most well known as either Kimber Lee, or Princess KimberLee. Since getting signed to WWE, she’s appeared on NXT a handful of times under her real name, so the going assumption was the company would find some permutation of “Kimberly” when they finally got around to rechristening her.
As it turns out: nope! Kimber will now henceforth be known as “Abbey Laith.” At least, until such time as WWE shortens it to just “Abbey,” or decides a better name would be like “Pam Bomber” or something. Kimb — uh … Abbey made the name change official on social media.
https://twitter.com/AbbeyLaithWWE/status/877557926466125825
In the grand tradition of Daria Berenato becoming Sonya Deville, and Macey Estrella becoming Lacey Evans, let’s all start practicing calling her “Abbey Laith.” Her original Twitter account is parked now, perhaps to be resurrected one day. But maybe hopefully not!
If you’re not super familiar with Abbey, she’s pretty damn great. She’s a former CHIKARA Grand Champion, and held the tag team titles in both Shimmer and Shine. She’s expected to do well in the Mae Young Classic — if she’s a participant, anyway. (She probably totally is.) (We hope.) You can check out this cool mini-documentary about her, or you can watch some of the highlights below!
