WWE has been a media/television juggernaut for more than sixty years, but the name attached to the brand right now does not represent how far they’ve come from in the last 20 to 30 years.
I grew up on the WWF side of the Monday Night Wars. When it was time to watch pro wrestling, the family was watching either the World Wrestling Federation or World of Sport reruns on The Wrestling Channel, so I didn’t get to experience what WCW had to offer, when it was at its hottest period in WCW/NWA’s lifespan before the success.
“Stone Cold” and Mankind were two of the first personas I saw on a Friday evening on Sky Sports 1 when Raw is War aired in the UK. Their mesmerising characters keep me watching even now. Though they are now retired and deservedly in the WWE Hall of Fame, they are the reason I still watch old WWF content on the WWE Network.
Now I am done with the introduction, let’s talk about how the WWF/WWF lawsuit affects the WWE to this very day.
As we all know, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature had always had a problem with the Federation behind the scenes. In 1994, the Federation reached an agreement with the WWF to use the acronym WWF in their website branding that was set to launch on the World Wide Web, which was in its infancy.
WWF vs. WWF
Everything seemed fine for the World Wrestling Federation until the millennium hit in 2000, and “The Panda People” claimed that the Federation infringed on the agreement that they made in 1994. Vince and the company continued to dispute this claim until 2002, when the trial – which seemed like a two-hour iron man match in a courtroom setting and with falls-count-anywhere rules – was coming to the end.
The main bulk of the trial ended in April of 2002, when the WWF went on its Insurrextion tour in Europe, ending in the famous Earls Court in London, where the trial was taking place.
Unfortunately for wrestling fans, World Wrestling Federation was legally forced to change its name by the London court of law, which they did when they announced their “Get the F out” campaign and thus changed their legal name from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment Incorporated.
WWE changed everything to fit their new moniker, WWF.com was changed to WWE.com, the stock market name – which was still WWF until about 2003 – had to change too, and so on.
Now onto the main question; is WWE effected by its name change?
My short answer is yes, but the long answer is a bit more complex.
Brand Recognition
WWF, even to this very day in 2016, has more brand recognition than the WWE has. Older people associate pro-wrestling with either World of Sport or the World Wrestling Federation.
I do realise that the talent of today is far greater than that of the Attitude Era, with people like AJ Styles, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. But there was more drawing power to the Federation with The Hardys, The Dudleys, Edge and Christian, Steve Austin, Mankind, The Rock, Ken Shamrock, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Triple H and many more to keep us glued to our television screens when the WWF put its brand of action out to the masses each week.
Drawing power is simply not there in this day and age, where people are more excited for what the indies have to offer (not as much TNA anymore) than still tuning into WWE each week – or have left pro-wrestling altogether.
That’s it from me, see you with another article next week, CIAO!
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