Coming up... Cody Rhodes is sued.
WWE have a new TV show. The first trailer for the Mr
McMahon Netflix docuseries and more. I’m Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News.
The wrestling calendar has many different seasons. Cody Rhodes & WWE Lawsuit There’s the Road to WrestleMania.
There’s the All In/All Out/Shake It All About fortnight. And next week we’ll
be getting WWE’s season premiere of their shows that have never once stopped broadcasting.
But this week, this week has a different theme: everyone’s suing everyone else week!
Following former AEW commentator Kevin Kelly and the Tate Twins - who played Dalton Castle’s
The Boys - filing a lawsuit against AEW alleging defamation and trying to get its talent classified
as employees rather than independent contractors. That’s when you know you’ve made it, Tony
Khan. When you’re wrestlers try to unionise. Cody Rhodes, WWE and their merchandising partner
Fanatics have been hit with a lawsuit over their use of the American Nightmare phrase.
Now, this sort of stuff happens all the time, and typically goes nowhere. WWE are too big
of a machine to wage a legal battle against, and sometimes the parties filing the claims are
just chancers who don’t actually have a case. But this one is different, as it’s by the Boston
punk band American Nightmare, who had already agreed how WWE would use the American Nightmare
phrase, which they claim WWE has now gone back on. According to Post Wrestling, this isn’t just
an allegation of trademark infringement - i.e. using the American Nightmare phrase -
it’s “breach of contract, and intentional interference with contractual relations.”
The band registered the trademark back in 2016 for music, clothing and apparel and
entertainment services - mainly live music performances. Cody filed for the trademark
in 2019 for wrestling-related activities. This was a period of time where Cody
seemingly couldn’t use any of his own names, as WWE also reportedly prevented
him from having the surname Rhodes. Cody’s trademark filing started a back and forth
between him and the band, which was settled in March 2021, while Cody was still under contract
with AEW, where they agreed Cody would make a one-off payment of $30,000, and he could
use American Nightmare on his merchandise: “under the condition that such items
prominently used Rhodes’ name, likeness, or wrestling-related imagery in a size at least
75% larger than the “American Nightmare” text” This was so it was clear that the American
Nightmare merchandise was for Cody Rhodes the wrestler, not American Nightmare the band.
But now American Nightmare claim WWE is selling merchandise through Fanatics that doesn’t meet the
75% size Cody likeness they agreed upon. And that fans have turned up to American Nightmare gigs
wearing Cody American Nightmare shirts, showing there is confusion between the two. Confusion
that’s backed up further by fans often tagging American Nightmare the band on social media
posts instead of American Nightmare the Cody. Apparently the band’s legal representation
first contacted Rhodes’ lawyer in 2022 about the infringing Crown design, but didn’t get a
reply. They reached out against in April and May this year, sending cease and desist letters.
WWE replied to them in May, stating that Fanatics had passed this over to them.
The band are seeking: “damages of at least $150,000, as well as
treble damages of up to $300,000 related to federal trademark infringement”
But as a famed Eastern mystic once said, karma’s a bitch.
Because WWE have been serving Bryan Danielson WWE Cease & Desist independent wrestlers for years with cease
and desist letters, on far weaker cases. Like Bryan Danielson just the other month.
AEW’s Danielson had previously said he would avoid doing the YES chant because when he was
leaving, Kevin Dunn politely asked him to respect WWE’s intellectual property, even the ones
that might not be legally enforceable. But back on the 29th July, Danielson decided
to test that - filing to trademark the ‘YES’ chant he first got over in WWE for
wrestling entertainment purposes. In an interview with Luke James Chats
conducted in August, Danielson revealed he received an email shortly after from WWE:
“I applied for it, but then I got — it wasn’t necessarily a cease and desist, I got some sort
of legal letter from WWE. It’s really weird because my manager just texted me and said like,
‘Hey, this thing is available. Do you want to get it?’ And I was like, ‘How much does it cost?’
And it wasn’t that much. And I was like, ‘Ok, sure.’ And then shortly after that I got an email
from WWE saying like, ‘Oh, this is infringing on this or that or whatever.’ And I’m like, ‘Dude,
I’m not trying to sell anybody anything.’” But you can’t cover lawsuits and wrestling
without… talking about Vince McMahon. Janel Grant accused McMahon of sexual assault
and trafficking back in January, leading to McMahon resigning from WWE. The two sides have
been engaged in legal back and forth ever since, but Grant’s lawsuit had to be put on pause
because the US government is conducting their own investigation into McMahon.
With that part paused, Grant’s team filed a petition in July seeking medical
records from Dr Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness - where she alleges Vince sent her
for treatments that weren’t disclosed to her. In response, Colker filed a complaint against
Grant accusing her of a smear campaign against him, and that he had suffered damages as a result.
POST Wrestling has now reported, though, that Colker has withdrawn the complaint.
Grant’s attorney claimed it was only ever a “baseless motion… filed simply as yet another
frivolous attempt to intimidate Ms. Grant.” We’re going to need a McMahon
Netflix documentary series 2. But before then, we actually need a series 1
- which has been four years and two separate Mr McMahon Netflix Trailer resignations in the making, and Netflix
have released its first official trailer. It begins with a sitdown interview clip of
Vince, where he talks about others portraying him as a bad guy - but nobody really knows him.
It continues with talking heads from the biggest names ever in WWE - Rock ‘The Dwayne’ Johnson,
Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin and… who’s that, why’s there a blank screen there?
And also Bruce Prichard and Eric Bischoff. That’s going to be objective.
It then mostly chronologically goes through his wrestling career - not his abusive childhood under
his step father, nor his failed non-wrestling projects before he took over the WWF. And then
also notes his scandals - the steroid trial, Chris Benoit’s murder-suicide, and then, yes, the
recent lawsuits and allegations of sexual assault. The docuseries is said to be 6 one hour
episodes long. If told chronologically, his scandals over the last two years will
probably be covered in the final show. While the project initially started out as a
collaboration between Netflix and WWE, with WWE announcing it in their Q3 2020 earnings call, and
Vince conducting numerous interviews and claiming he wanted a warts and all portrayal, this stopped
when the Washington Post first broke their story in 2022 and didn’t provide any further interviews.
PWInsider is reporting that Vince didn’t have any say over the final edit of the show.
Bret Hart is also shown as a talking Bret Hart Returning To WWE head in the docuseries, where the producers
presumably edited around him mostly s****** on Bill Goldberg. But we won’t have to wait
until the show’s 25th September premiere date to see him again. Because Bret has just been
announced for Monday’s episode of Raw in Calgary! Jackie Remond announced the news, and
Triple H said “You definitely won’t want to miss this” for Raw’s season premiere.
Hart hasn’t been seen on WWE screens since sitting at ringside for 2022’s Clash at the Castle show.
Seeing that he’s CM Punk’s favourite wrestler, expect Drew McIntyre to kill him.
Monday Night Raw will be getting WWE More Edgier On Netflix? another season premiere just under
four months later, as the show moves from the USA Network to Netflix on January 6th.
Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman made their first public appearance together since WrestleMania 40
on Thursday - you’re exposing the business! - to talk about the move, and WWE’s larger business
success, at Bloomberg’s Power Players summit. Heyman spoke about how WWE has doubled its
profits since 2019 thanks to Nick Khan, Paul Levesque, Roman Reigns, who is the biggest
box office draw in sports entertainment history, and the $5 billion deal with Netflix.
It’s been speculated that WWE could get edgier with the move, as they will no longer be under
broadcast TV’s censorship restrictions - not that The Rock ever cared. But Roman said at the summit
he thinks WWE needs to stick to their values and morals they have in place and the culture they
have now - to appeal to the widest audience. Heyman, the creator of Extreme Championship
Wrestling, was more flexible, saying it will all depend on what the storylines call for.
But it might just come down to analytical driven data. Reigns talked about how much
more viewership data they’ll have access to by being on Netflix. They can constantly use
that to decide what’s working and what isn’t. New WWE Show But WWE still have a foot and one arm in
traditional broadcast TV - with SmackDown moving to the USA Network, and NXT
premiering on the CW next month. And now WrestleVotes is reporting a new show:
“WWE is set to announce a live primetime special on @NBC in the next few days. While
the location remains unknown, sources say tickets are set to go on sale next Friday.
We’ve heard some internal speculation about a Saturday night in December. This will be WWE’s
first primetime NBC special since August 2, 2008.” AEW Dynamite Low Rating Unfortunately for AEW, despite a very good All
Out go-home show, with Hangman Page setting fire to Swerve Strickland’s childhood home
excellent closing angle, their traditional TV figures are struggling - with Wednesday’s
show drawing 660,000 viewers and a 0.19 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This is down from the
last few week’s near 700,000 and 0.23 figures, and is concerning due to the lack of
competition now the Olympics is over. Raw was also down this week, drawing
its lowest rating since January, but that is more explainable, as it was on Labor Day.
Tony Khan remains optimistic, though, as he’s said in the All Out media call that AEW fans spend the
most money per month on streaming video compared to fans of any other sporting league in the world
- a good sign for any current rights negotiations who might want streaming content, *cough* Warner
Bros Discovery and Max *cough* - and that AEW and WBD have lots of details to work out, but
“there is a lot of excitement on each side.” And that if they can pull everything off,
he believes AEW could be the second most profitable wrestling company in the
history of the wrestling business. Now go watch mine and Luke’s AEW All Out
predictions ahead of tomorrow’s show!