A couple of new reports are shooting down a rumor that was floating around about WWE allowing ring talents to keep their ring names after leaving the company. The rumor had been making is way around social media today, but both Fightful Select and PWInsider have shot down the news.
The confusion apparently came out of a conversation about Ethan Page’s name being trademarked, during which the notion spread that WWE was allowing talent to use their ring names after they exited. However, as both sites note, that isn’t the case. Some talent have been able to use their names, but those were cases where WWE did not have the ability to prevent them from doing so because they had ownership of the name and they license WWE to use it. Chris Jericho, Adam Cole, Toni Storm, Mustafa Ali, Sting, CM Punk and the like are examples of people where that has been the case.
Obviously, WWE cannot prevent talent who use their real names from using them outside the company and Ryback and Ultimate Warrior both famously changed their legal names to their ring names in attempts to use that loophole. Talent like Metalik are still able to use that name, but he cannot use Gran Metalik which was his WWE ring name.
A talent like Seth Rollins would not be able to use that name should he theoretically leave WWE at some point; this is why Dolph Ziggler, for example, is using his ring name of Nic Nemeth. Raj Dhesi cannot use the name Jinder Mahal and AJ Francis can’t use Top Dolla.
