WWE Trying To Trademark All WCW, ECW Pay-Per-View Names
Company wants to stop AEW using them.
Having watching helplessly on as AEW produced a 'Bash at the Beach' special edition of Dynamite this past January, WWE are now moving to trademark all dormant WCW and ECW pay-per-view trademarks in a bid to prevent their rivals from capitalising on the events' respective legacies.
Dave Meltzer reported the news of WWE closing such legal loopholes in this week's issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Last January, WWE attempted to trademark the term 'Halloween Havoc' - the name of WCW's spooktacular October tradition - but it was rejected because of a pending application. The company did, however, manage to secure sole use of the 'WarGames' moniker, thwarting MLW's shows of the same as the concept became a staple of the NXT calendar.
WWE also tried to stop AEW's use of Bash at the Beach, oddly citing that it was too similar to their expired PPV The Bash - itself a trademark-protected derivative of The Great American Bash. There have been no legal ramifications since Cody and co. promoted their version earlier this year.
In the past few years, WWE have also ran a glorified house show under the Starrcade banner, presumably to give them enough recourse to register the name before anybody else comes in and takes it.