10 Worst WWE Moments Of 2002

OK, so this was nowhere near as foul as Tommy Dreamer drinking spit, but it still would've left Vince McMahon in a foul mood. He steadily monopolised the industry from the 1980s onwards, and was coming off the back of thumbing his nose at WCW the prior year when 2002 dropped a bombshell: The WWF would have to change their name.

They lost a lengthy legal battle with the World Wildlife Fund, and that meant the simple WWF branding was definitely out for the World Wrestling Federation. Thinking on his feet, McMahon and his team came up with a hasty "Get The F Out" campaign that'd introduce the new WWE name. It sounded so weird and unfamiliar at the time, but WWE debuted their new title on the 6 May 2002 episode of Raw.

That was the first show under the WWE moniker, and Judgment Day on 19 May would prove to be the "first" WWE pay-per-view as well. At first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was easy to do, but it wreaked havoc on company business. After all, the WWF had worked tirelessly to make those 3 letters the go to acronym for wrestling, and now they had to switch it up to something else.

Further, rebranding a huge organisation was never going to be easy. This was a murky, uncertain time for the promotion. For fans, it led to a decade-ish of pesky blurring on old footage to stop those banned WWF letters from showing up. That obviously sucked, and it ruined some classic moments in a heartbeat.

Today, the WWE name is second nature, but it took a while before people were on board with it, and there was no clean break either - wrestling is continuous, which meant going from WWF to WWE without a breather felt jarring to viewers.