Gabbi Tuft shares the origins of ‘Tyler Reks’ in WWE.
Tyler Reks competed in WWE between 2008 and 2012. Reks retired from pro wrestling a short time later, and publicly came out as a trans woman in February 2021.
Now known as Gabbi Tuft, she currently works as a personal fitness and nutrition coach. Gabbi spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about her career in WWE and some of the unique in-ring names she used throughout her wrestling career.
Some fans might remember Gabbi was also called “Taj Milano” in WWE’s FCW developmental territory. She shared how she got that name, and why it wasn’t exactly a great fit.
“Horrible, yeah. So what they did is one day Doc [Dr. Tom Prichard] comes to us and he goes, ‘Alright. We got a new assignment from the office.’ And your job this week is to come up with, I think, 10 or 15 first names and 10 or 15 last names and put them in a column next to each other and submit them,” Gabbi explained. “I was like, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, because we can’t use your real names.’ And so I just came up with a bunch of first names and a bunch of last names. And they go okay, ‘Well Taj was cool’ and ‘Milano’ and they just stuck it together. I’m like, really? That’s how it works. I mean, I’m no Post Malone by any means. So it lasted about a week.”
‘This is a no-brainer.’
Gabbi says she actually did some consulting for her next name, Tyler Reks. The ‘jurassic’ nod was intentional, and fans picked up on it right away.
“That had some thought in it, actually. I had a conversation with one of my friends who was the owner of a big marketing firm. And I said, ‘Hey, look, we’re thinking about the name Tyler for the first name’ for WWE because I had told them this sucks. I gotta get a new name. And Dusty goes okay, go find something,” she explained.
“I asked [my friend], and he said this is a no-brainer,” Gabbi said. “He said ‘Use Reks as the last name, but spell it differently so it’s not obvious what you’re trying to do.’ And I asked him, ‘What am I trying to do?’ And he goes, ‘You’re trying to get T Rex in there.’ ‘Oh, thanks, Howard. That’s awesome.’ So we changed the spelling, and we had ‘T Rex’ kind of built-in and we spoon-fed it without giving them the whole meal, and so the audience picked up on it real quick.”
Fans can check out what Gabbi has been up to on her Instagram and TikTok accounts, as well as on her website, www.coachgabbi.com.
She also spoke with WrestleZone about her intent of returning to the ring, and how a recent visit sparked an old flame. Check out our full interview with Gabbi Tuft below:
