{"id":99784,"date":"2025-10-25T03:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/99784\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T03:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:27:08","slug":"darts-tim-pusey-barred-from-using-the-magnet-nickname-ahead-of-world-champs-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/99784\/","title":{"rendered":"Darts: Tim Pusey barred from using \u2018The Magnet\u2019 nickname ahead of world champs debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe might have to do some sort of poll, but it\u2019s hard, because everything can be turned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment I don\u2019t have any [alternatives] and the chants can be colourful.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Pusey made his televised darts debut at the Auckland Darts Masters in 2018 he was allowed to use the nickname, but times have changed as he had a seven-year wait to return to the stage.<\/p>\n

Pusey played in the Australian Darts masters earlier this year and is competing in the weekly Australia-New Zealand Premier League but has been unable to use the nickname in those events.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t the first time a player has been forced to change their nickname.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Owen Bates was prohibited from using his nickname \u201cThe Master\u201d and he still hasn\u2019t adopted a new one, although he will need to think of one quickly having also qualified for December\u2019s 128-player world championship in London.<\/p>\n

Last year, Kiwi Kayden Milne had to stop using \u201cHalf Stubby\u201d on the stage, despite previously using it on two occasions at the New Zealand Darts Masters. He now goes by \u201cSmiley\u201d.<\/p>\n

The winner of this year\u2019s world champs will pocket $2.3 million in prize money. Jonny Tata is the only Kiwi to have qualified so far<\/a> but there is a chance at least one more could join him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe might have to do some sort of poll, but it\u2019s hard, because everything can be turned. \u201cAt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25441,74,3017,1135,43769,9218,18239,18430,7123,45426,35142,13023,71,42,19701,21641,9097,43,73013,1118,9617,73012,12860,73014,223,46001,40,38,41,39,3382,377],"class_list":["post-99784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-adopt","tag-after","tag-ahead","tag-australian","tag-barred","tag-before","tag-championship","tag-champs","tag-current","tag-darts","tag-debut","tag-deemed","tag-from","tag-headlines","tag-magnet","tag-moniker","tag-must","tag-news","tag-nickname","tag-of","tag-player","tag-pusey","tag-revealed","tag-risque","tag-the","tag-tim","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-using","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}