Top WWE officials are very upset that Ring of Honor and Figure Toy Company plan on releasing a Kevin Steen (Owens) action figure, according to a report in the Wrestling Observer. They're mad because WWE is pushing Owens as a big star right now and now ROH will enter the toy marketplace with an action figure for him before they can. A big reason why they are upset is because the look of Kevin on ROH as Steen is the same to when he's in WWE as Owens. It's not like he's out there playing a different character or changing up his look, which hurts WWE because then ROH could profit off what WWE is doing with him. The announcement was made about two weeks ago with Adam Cole and the Briscoes also getting action figures. WWE officials are trying to prevent this sort of thing from happening again by telling Triple H and the talent relations department to sign non-WWE talents to NXT with merchandising deals before they make it on to ROH or TNA Wrestling. That's also why WWE is going to try to let younger talents know that if they dream of getting to WWE then they shouldn't sign with ROH or TNA. There will still likely be some ROH or TNA guys signed at some point in the future. There's likely nothing WWE can do from a legal standpoint because a lot of independent wrestling talents have signed five year deals with Figure Toy Company so they have the right to market Kevin Steen merchandise until the deal expires.