Allfonso A. Castillo sent out the following regarding WWE Lawyer Jerry McDevitt’s comments on possible violations between TNA Wrestling and WWE due to the TNA Hardcore Justice PPV:
I reached out earlier to World Wrestling Entertainment attorney Jerry McDevitt to ask if WWE had already, or was considering, taking legal action against Total Nonstop Action Wrestling for TNA’s promoting of this Sunday’s “Hardcore Justice” pay per view.
The event is being hyped, in effect, as an ECW reunion, despite WWE owning the rights to the ECW name and intellectual property.
This is the response from McDevitt:
“The WWE is the sole owner of the ECW marks, and as with all of WWE’s intellectual property it will be vigorously protected. TNA acts at its peril if its infringes upon WWE’s rights.”
You can take that to mean that TNA’s questionable usage of the ECW brand is on WWE’s legal radar. TNA could argue semantics and claim that they are not promoting an ECW reunion as much as a hardcore wrestling reunion, but that’s still questionable.
TNA may have harmed themselves by mentioning the E-C-W letters more than once on television in recent weeks, and featuring photos of past ECW events, albeit photos presumably not owned by WWE.
TNA President Dixie Carter may be excited about the buzz and small uptick in ratings that the “Hardcore Justice” concept has created, but you have to wonder how quickly that can change if she is served with cease and desist papers hours before the pay-per-view is set to go live.