Chapter 2099
Super Freak
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2008
- Messages
- 29,762
- Reaction score
- 24
Hogan owns the rights to his own character(s). Hence why he's able to use variations of it and his classic Red & Yellow color scheme in both WWE and WCW (and TNA while that lasted). His "Hulk Hogan" character was created pre-WWE so it's not a McMahon-creation (who eventually started licensing and claiming ownership on the WWF/E characters). Chris Jericho has a similar deal in which he "owns" his character...or at least, his own "ring name" (Jericho). A lot of wrestlers are doing this nowadays...like AJ Styles, Sting, Samoa Joe, etc.
This is why Cody Rhodes is now just known as "Cody". WWE technically owns his ring surname "Rhodes"...so he can't use it (he hilariously comments on this on the "Being the Elite" YouTube show...which I recommend you wrestling fans watch!). In some cases in the past, Vince has "given" wrestlers the rights to their ring-names (possibly also because he couldn't 'own' them a while back)..usually as a "thanks" for their years of service.
WWE has jumped on trademarking some of the phrases/nicknames...like "Y2J" and probably "The Beast" from Lesnar.
I didn't know any of this. Thanks for posting! I started getting back into watching WWE, so this was a pretty cool piece of info.
I'll have to check out that YouTube channel as well.