Rumor Killer on WWE Handing Over Trademarks to Talents When They Leave Company

Fightful Select and PWInsider reported that their sources debunked a recent rumor regarding WWE making major changes to how they trademark their talents ring names and ownership of these trademarks after those talents leave the company.

This rumor originated from Bryan Alvarez in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Live. Alvarez reported that his sources stated that WWE had recently made major changes to their trademarks mentality for their talents. Alvarez reported that WWE’s new contracts under TKO revolve around WWE wanting to trademark everything related to a talent even if the ring name was used prior to them joining the company with Ethan Page being an example of someone who had their ring name recently trademarked by WWE so that they could own it. Alvarez reported that the major change is that when a talent leaves the company, WWE would hand everything over back to the talent so that they could use the ring name outside of the company instead of having to create a new ring name.

Fightful Select reported that their sources within WWE stated that this was something that got “massively misconstrued online.”

It was reported that those spoken to stated that WWE does not have the ability, in most cases, to prevent a talent from using a ring name they had used before joining the company and having the company trademark it. In the report, Lince Dorado, Adam Cole, Eric Young, Roderick Strong, Mercedes Martinez, Samoa Joe, Sting, Mustafa Ali, Toni Storm, Kyle O’Reilly, and Chris Jericho were given as examples of this situation. It was reported that the reason why they were able to continue using those ring names after their careers in WWE was due to those ring names had been well established before they had joined the company.

It was also reported that for talent who use their real names as their ring names, WWE can not prevent them from using their real names outside of the company. This reportedly was a reason why Warrior, Ryback, Chyna, and Test had changed their legal names to their ring names as a way to get around this situation with WWE.

In regards to talent whose ring name contains a part of their former WWE ring name, it was reported that this is possible due to the ring name would not be considered as just being part of their WWE ring name or had used the ring name outside of the company. Examples given where Christian Cage, Metalik, and Cody Rhodes (who went by just Cody in AEW and the indies).

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources confirmed that this was something that was overblown as well. Johnson reported that those spoken to stated that if a talent has ownership of a name that they created prior to joining WWE, they would retain the right to it if and when they leave the company. Johnson reported that the reason why WWE is able to trademark the name is due to the talent would have licensed the use of it to WWE while they are in the company.

Johnson reported that for ring names that were created by WWE, the company still would retain the rights and trademarks to it after a talent leaves the company.