WWE: Bad Bunny vs. Miz Update, Riddle Lawsuit Update, New Trademark & Rejected Trademarks

Mar 25, 2021

Bad Bunny vs. The Miz WrestleMania Match Update

This past Monday’s episode of WWE RAW featured the official announcement of Bad Bunny facing off against The Miz in a singles match at Night 1 of WrestleMania 37 on April 10th.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the reason why Bad Bunny is competing in a singles match is due to both Damian Priest and John Morrison currently dealing with minor injuries. Johnson said that WWE officials could change this match into a tag team match should both be medically cleared in time for the show.

Riddle Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Update

As noted before, Riddle’s sexual abuse accuser Candy Cartwright, real name Samantha Tavel, filed a lawsuit in October of 2020 alleging that Riddle sexually abused her on multiple occasions and that former EVOLVE owner Gabe Sapolsky, EVOLVE, and WWE were all complacent in the matter.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Judge Manish S. Shah of the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois issued a ruling on March 24th dismissing both WWE and Saplosky from Tavel’s lawsuit. Johnson reported that the reason was due to the court deciding that Tavel failed to prove why the court should have legal jurisdiction over WWE and Saplosky for the case nor provided strong evidence to prove that both parties were in any way connected to her claims against Riddle.

Johnson also reported that Riddle’s motion to have the case dismissed was also rejected by the court and both him and EVOLVE will continue as defendants in Tavel’s lawsuit.

WWE Files New Trademark, Update on Rejected Trademarks

WWE recently filed a new trademark to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

A trademark for “Swing Is In The Air” was filed on March 19th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes.

As noted before, WWE recently had several of their trademark filings rejected due to the USPTO’s issues with the lack of written consent from talent in question. Among the rejected trademarks included one for “Dean Ambrose” which was the ring name of Jon Moxley during his time in the company.

Fightful reported that a source spoken to recently stated that WWE’s process for filing trademarks involves the company filing a trademark for a talent without consulting the talent first. If the trademark gets rejected due to lack of written consent, the company then politely asks the talent to sign a document to get the trademark approved. This same source also stated that in almost every instance, this process goes smoothly and there are no real issues backstage associated with it nor does it have anything to do with talent directly going against WWE for trademarks.