WWE Vs. AEW Trademark Battle? | WrestleTalk News

WWE vs AEW Trademark Battle?!

Another day, another drama as the two biggest wrestling companies in the world continue their continuous trade of talent.

But this story is actually about one of AEW’s earliest and biggest ever gets: JeeeYon Moxley.

You may remember back in October WWE filed to trademark the name Dean Ambrose, the lunatic fringed, germaphobe Moxley portrayed before he was like ‘f’ this I’mma be a world champion.

This process has dragged on until now and the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a review of the proceedings, or lack thereof, the other day as reported by Heel By Nature.

It read: “To register a mark that consists of or comprises the name of a particular living individual, including a first name, pseudonym, stage name, or nickname, an applicant must provide a written consent personally signed by the named individual.”

It said that WWE’s filing failed to clarify whether the mark identifies a living individual (it does) and failed to show Mox’s consent (because they probably don’t have it?).

Now I think that makes sense considering the lack of love lost between Jon and WWE, so he’s probably not rushing to write his letter of consent.

But WWE has also had a number of other applications falter for the same reason on their own talent roster: Pete Dunne, Dominik Mysterio, Drew Gulak and Tony Nese.

Admittedly in the case of Nese and Gulak those are their actual names which I wouldn’t give Vince control of, it’s a bit too the witch from Spirited Away for my liking. But I mean at least Sen got perks for being employed at the bathhouse. At least she was employed.

And Dunne and Dom were using those names before they joined WWE.

WrestleMania Card In Trouble?!

That’s not the only trouble brewing in the DUBYA, as it is being reported by Wrestlevotes that the card for WrestleMania 37 isn’t anywhere close to being finalised.

We are one month from the show and the according to Wrestlevotes Twitter post: “the WrestleMania card is not close to finalized and “most of it is back to square one.” Even for recent Vince standards, 29 days out is bad.”

This follows hot on the heels of Whisper King Dave Meltzer saying that Vince wanted to “blow up” the card and make it “bigger” – I think wrestling has had enough explosions this month cheers, Vince, or was that not enough.

So as it stands the only confirmed things for the show are Sasha Banks vs Bianca Belair and the frankly too obvious pairing of Roman Reigns and Edge.

Vince is reportedly keen to keep the card, or lack thereof, schtum so nothing leaks like Bad Bunny & Priest vs The Miz & Morrison.

WrestleMania Card NOT In Trouble?!

Though that could be why it’s assumed that there is trouble with the card in the first place. Vinny Tightlips has reportedly restricted access to Mania info so much that only upper management properly know what’s going on.

A conflicting report has come out from Ringside News saying this years show of shows is all set, the card is locked in with NO major revisions.

They cited a tenured member of creative staff who said things are strictly “need to know”, but it is definitely all finalised.

Well I’ll tell you who needs to know: this guy, so that I can properly get excited.

WWE Star Says No Fan Shows Helped Them

March 2020 has been a tough year for all of us. Stuck inside, unable to see friends and family, and for the early part watching these weird near-silent wrestling shows where the only sound was when back and mat did meet.

But for some people the pandemic has helped them to make positive changes – and when it comes to wrestling it has given some talent a chance to shine.

One of the stand out pairings from the pre-Thunderdome era of WWE was Bayley and Sasha Banks, who stole the show week on week with their heelish high-jinks.

And speaking recently on the After the Bell podcast Bayley said that the lockdown WWE helped her shake-off the tight grip of her old hugger character and transform completely into Karen Prime.

“Not having a crowd is what helped me the most. I was having trouble making the crowd believe and the fans believe that this is me now. I was with a ponytail and being a hugger for so long that it was hard for them to see me in this different character. They had like a weird, not reacting, don’t believe it and weren’t buying into it [reaction]. Then when we got to the PC I thought it was going to be a one night thing and then the more we did it without fans I thought you know what, I don’t have to worry about them, I can play off my opponents, I can play off Sasha who’s my tag partner.”

Still worry about them a bit though Bay, they are the reason you do this.

NXT Championship Match Spoiler

NXT this week was pretty eventful as we had the reveal of the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships which went to Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez, who then lost them to Shotzi Blackheart and Ember Moon in short shrift.

This, however, freed up Gonzalez to be challenged to an NXT Women’s Championship match by Io Shirai, which will likely take place at the two night extravaganza Takeover: Stand & Deliver.

And guess what? There’s a potential spoiler for that match. Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live said:

“I don’t know who’s gonna win the title and plans change all the time in NXT. I heard months ago that Raquel is probably the one who is going to beat Io Shirai.”

Io and Gonzalez have an aged beef as Raquel pinned Shiria in Wargames to win the match for her team – Raquel has also been on a hotstreak of sorts recently beating Rhea Ripley and winning the Women’s Dusty Cup, so she could be the one to do it for sure.

Backstage Update on New NXT Titles

But she did lose the NXT Women’s Tag Titles on the first defense, on the first day of holding them, all within one show. Even the Miz got a week with the WWE Championship.

The compressed nature of all of this might be explainable with this bit of backstage news though: as the belts were meant to be the prize for the victors of the Women’s Dusty Cup, but WWE decided that the women’s competition would be rushed to coincide with the men’s, which meant the belts weren’t finished in time.

So that’s when NXT gave Kai and Gonzalez the title shot against Jax and Baszler, they then received the women’s belts, so came up with the screwy finish to keep Kai and Gonzalez strong, which is why it was so weird that the thread was just left kind of dangling as Jax and Baszler went back to Belair and Banks.

Kyle O’Reilly Reaggravates Neck Injury

After the shocking fallout from NXT TakeOver Vengeance Day where Adam Cole turned on his Undisputed Era buddy Kyle O’Reilly, O’Reilly was then kayfabe injured by Cole after a brainbuster to the steps. An injury angle so good, people legitimately got concerned for Kyle’s safety because he’s a really good pro wrestler.

Since then, Kyle has been on the shelf selling his storyline injured neck, but on this week’s episode of NXT, he returned to distract Adam Cole and cost him his NXT Championship match against Finn Balor. The pair then brawled to end the show, with Kyle almost managing to repay Cole with a brainbuster himself.

However, this may have just extended the eventual blowoff match between Cole and O’Reilly, with Kyle tweeting:

“I may have not been “medically cleared” and perhaps I “snuck into the building” but I’ll be damned if that didn’t feel “f’n great”. I’m willing to accept responsibility for my actions… something Adam Cole will never do.”

“Now I’m being told another 2-3 weeks added to my recovery time for re-aggravating my neck last night. How many weeks is that now? Weeks won’t keep me away from beating the sh*t out of that SOB”

Huh, an extra two to three weeks? Wouldn’t that make his recovery land perfectly in time for the two night TakeOver special just announced on this week’s NXT taking place on April 7th and 8th called NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver? What a coincidence!

AEW VS NXT Ratings

However even NXT’s two major blockbuster announcements and the return of Kyle O’Reilly didn’t help them best AEW in the ratings this week – with Dynamite managing an average of 743,000 viewers, while NXT managed 691,000.

Interestingly though, this marks a drop of 191,000 viewers for AEW from the previous week, while NXT essentially remained steady, only dropping 1,000 viewers. Maybe this is because of a lack of a big Shaq match, AEW Revolution’s dud finish, or maybe just people tuning into the South Park Vaccination Special, who knows.

Luchador Masks Explained

So that was almost lucha, but I’ve got one last little bit of lucha for you because if you head on over to Partsfunknown right now, link in the description below, you can watch the latest episode of my wrestling documentary video essay series Explained. And this time I tackle the surprisingly humble origins of lucha masks and all of the crazy myths that have sprung up around them since. Here’s a sneak peak.

And you can watch the full Explained episode by pressing the video on the right, and press the video below that to find out more about the possibility of Divas returning to WWE. Don’t forget to subscribe here for daily wrestling news videos, and subscribe to partsFUNknown while you’re at it for more Explained and awesome content over there. I’ve been El Fakidor Laurie Blake, your Jam That Jampion. Jam That Jam.

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