10 Years Ago WWF was no more

rovert

10 years ago today a bunch of Pandas mug WWF of their identity:

dlofnep

It took me years to get used to saying WWE. It felt weird saying it. Even now, I still let WWF slip sometimes.

CMpunked

dlofnep wrote: »

It took me years to get used to saying WWE. It felt weird saying it. Even now, I still let WWF slip sometimes.

You're not the only one, dude!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydbNDjQmKig

Insect Overlord

dlofnep wrote: »

It took me years to get used to saying WWE. It felt weird saying it. Even now, I still let WWF slip sometimes.

Sure even CM Punk managed to slip "WWF" into his drunk promo a few weeks back.

rovert

Wade Keller of PWTorch who did at least speak to Vince around that time and is still reasonably well connected always talks about the haste of the change and how WWE regrets in hindsight not branding themselves as World Wide Entertainment or something similar dropping the "Wrestling" completely.

WWE about two years released some mad press release stating that they were now simply WWE and not World Wrestling Entertainment but that didnt stick for whatever reason.

grames_bond

rovert wrote: »

WWE about two years released some mad press release stating that they were now simply WWE and not World Wrestling Entertainment but that didnt stick for whatever reason.

That's not quite true - legally they are "WWE Inc" and "world wrestling entertainment" doesn't exist anymore!

I had to change all the T's & C's on all our sites - was a pain in the hoop!!

jaykhunter

grames_bond wrote: »

That's not quite true - legally they are "WWE Inc" and "world wrestling entertainment" doesn't exist anymore!

To be honest it's somewhat of a blessing; nobody says "I'm the World Wrestling Entertainment Champion". It sounds SO stupid. I'm the champion of entertainment. But "WWE Champion" is fine as it's a company....although technically it's "i'm the champion of Mondays" :pac:

A small point, i always liked something that denotes a company - Federation, Association, Alliance etc rather than just "wrestling" at the end.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Its only the acronym WWF that they're barred from using. Legally they could still refer to themselves as the World Wrestling Federation.

jaykhunter

Yep. I'm pretty sure they could say WWF in Europe and Canada too, the ruling was for the States only. Odd case, like they can use the block logo from the Hulkamania and New Generation days, but not the Attitude Era scratch logo. A shame really because 90% of their stock footage is from that boom period.

I feel like such an old fart, we were recording a podcast the other day about No Holds Barred and Steve said "WWE champion" and I corrected him, lol.

rovert

Ive give up get what is and isnt allowed outside of the scratch logo being off limits.

The rules seem to change all the time. What muddys the water is WWE editing out the the block logo recently as they hate seemingly hate the word Wrestling.

DEFTLEFTHAND

If anyone has access to Westlaw.ie (subscription website) I'm pretty sure the case is outlined in full on there. We came across it in college in an overlap capacity but never delved into it in depth.

Machismo Fan

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

If anyone has access to Westlaw.ie (subscription website) I'm pretty sure the case is outlined in full on there. We came across it in college in an overlap capacity but never delved into it in depth.

You'd have to go to Westlaw.co.uk to get it, that'll be evening reading. I didn't realise how long the dispute went back.

Charisteas

World Wildlife Fund did have the WWF initials first though. Although I hate seeing the blurred logos on old footage, it's good to see Vince lose once in a while :pac:

Charlie Haughy

jaykhunter wrote: »

Yep. I'm pretty sure they could say WWF in Europe and Canada too, the ruling was for the States only. Odd case, like they can use the block logo from the Hulkamania and New Generation days, but not the Attitude Era scratch logo. A shame really because 90% of their stock footage is from that boom period.

Im guessing thats why silvervision in the UK can release those tagged classic dvds without any blurring of the WWF logo or beeping of the term WWF being said. I dont think the states gets those dvds.

rovert

Charlie Haughy wrote: »

Im guessing thats why silvervision in the UK can release those tagged classic dvds without any blurring of the WWF logo or beeping of the term WWF being said. I dont think the states gets those dvds.

Apparently as well Silvervision own the Master tapes hence why the older 80s, 90s are direct analogue rips from Master tapes WWE sent over to Silvervision back in the day. So WWE cant stop them from releasing that footage.

RF Video have a similar deal with ECW master tapes.

CMpunked

CMpunked wrote: »

You're not the only one, dude!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydbNDjQmKig

Sorry for quoting a video but look at Cole and King when he said WWF

jaykhunter

Interesting. Although Silvervision aren't releasing the actual master tapes they had back in the 80s, they were "taped over/lost" iirc, and so we're getting the 2nd generation footage. If you look at the WWE DVDs and Silvervision DVDs there's a marked difference in quality...and length!

Silvervision's home video releases from back in the day have different post-produced promos ("coliseum home video exclusive") and generally cut out entrances; while the WWE releases are edited live versions of the show. The time difference can be up to an hour!

For example, the 88 Survivor Series has :
A different opening (curtailed in SilverVision)
A different match order (1&2 are switched)
Different promos (eg Jake post-match promo)
WWE version is 36 minutes longer!

And of course Silvervision has no watermark, all the themes intact, and don't bleep out WWF.

Diabhal Beag

I've known nothing but the WWE era (yep I missed all the great stuff) so I always feel really young when somebody says WWF because I think of that ugly blue steel cage level wrestling with Bob Backlund.

gnfnrhead

The blue cage was awesome! Looked like it actually hurt insteadof just being bouncy.

Garseys

gnfnrhead wrote: »

The blue cage was awesome! Looked like it actually hurt insteadof just being bouncy.

Thats because it did,:pac: Remember hearing that the wrestlers were relieved when they switched back to the chain link cage and so were the crew, that blue cage is solid steel and weighs some amount.

It's funny seeing videos from 2002 with the old (then new) raw set and the old scratch logo, seems kinda out of place.

Losty Dublin

jaykhunter wrote: »

Yep. I'm pretty sure they could say WWF in Europe and Canada too, the ruling was for the States only. Odd case, like they can use the block logo from the Hulkamania and New Generation days, but not the Attitude Era scratch logo. A shame really because 90% of their stock footage is from that boom period.

I feel like such an old fart, we were recording a podcast the other day about No Holds Barred and Steve said "WWE champion" and I corrected him, lol.

The case was taken in the UK law counts and ultimately in the House of Lord, the UK's highest court. It related around a period from 1994 to 2000 and specifically an legal agreement held between the animal charity and the wrestling promotion. Basically, Titan undertook not to use the written phrase WWF from 1994 onwards at all in Europe and in general in the US and the spoken phrase WWF if it was used on it's own, and in return the charity undertook not to sue for previous uses thereof. However, Titan basically ignored it in the main and in spite of numerous approaches to sort it out, they didn't adhere to the deal. The last straw was when Titan's website www.wwf.com became one of the busiest websites in the world; they were asked to change the URL so the charity sued for breach and that was that.

Hashtag_HEEL

gnfnrhead wrote: »

The blue cage was awesome! Looked like it actually hurt insteadof just being bouncy.

The Bars on the blue did look quite painful Compared to the cain link used nowadays

Charisteas

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Basically, Titan undertook not to use the written phrase WWF from 1994 onwards at all in Europe and in general in the US and the spoken phrase WWF if it was used on it's own, and in return the charity undertook not to sue for previous uses thereof. However, Titan basically ignored it in the main and in spite of numerous approaches to sort it out, they didn't adhere to the deal. The last straw was when Titan's website www.wwf.com became one of the busiest websites in the world; they were asked to change the URL so the charity sued for breach and that was that.

As an add-on to that with a brief bit of history -

-World Wildlife Fund was founded in 1961. At this time, the current WWE was called CWC (Capitol Wrestling Corperation, owned by Roderick McMahon)

-In 1963 when CWC split from their joint partnership with the NWA, McMahon renamed the CWC to the WWWF.

-WWWF then eventually became WWF in 1979, some 18 years after World Wildlife Fund has been launched.

Though after all the legal wrangling, World Wildlife Fund had a slight name change themselves to World Wildlife Fund for Nature, so is now technically WWFN but continue to use WWF.org.