Why Did the WWF Change Its Name to WWE?

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has been a major driving force for the professional wrestling industry for several decades. The name of the brand has gone through several changes since its inception. It started as Capitol Wrestling Corporation and then transitioned to World Wide Wrestling Federation. Later, it was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).

If you check out the list of the best N64 wrestling games, you can see the brand’s name changing over the years. In 1979, the company started calling itself WWF. It was around the same time that Vincent K. McMahon took over the company from his father. Mr. McMahon took the company to new heights under this new name, WWF. In 2002, due to legal issues, it was rebranded as World Wrestling Entertainment.

A Brief History of Two WWFs

Before the World Wrestling Federation started its operations, there was another organisation that used the same initials, i.e., “WWF”. The World Wildlife Fund was founded in April 1961. Over the years, this organisation has become one of the largest environmental entities in the world.

In 1989, the World Wildlife Fund noticed that the World Wrestling Federation had applied for an “international class trademark” for WWF, which prompted them to take action. The two parties negotiated, and the World Wrestling Federation agreed not to use the initials “WWF” in a plain typeface font.

Due to this agreement, Mr. McMahon’s company could sell merchandise with the shiny, blocky WWF logo but was not allowed to sell anything that had “WWF” written on it in regular font, including video games. In return, the World Wildlife Fund agreed not to oppose the wrestling company’s trademark filing. However, things between the two entities got more serious as the federation continued its international expansion.

In the 1990s, McMahon’s company tried to block the other WWF’s trademark filings in various companies. The fund sued the federation in Switzerland over the World Wrestling Federation publishing a Swiss version of their WWF Magazine. Moreover, the federation was getting a lot of heat from the press about the alleged drug use, steroids, and sexual abuse taking place behind the scenes. Due to these reasons, the World Wildlife Fund did not want people to get them confused with the other WWF.

What Forced WWF to Change Its Name to WWE?

In 1994, the two WWFs reached an agreement that the World Wrestling Federation was never allowed to use the initials WWF in print and was to avoid verbally mentioning “WWF” as much as possible. The agreement also prevented the federation from all their trademarking efforts, except for trademarking their specific logo. In return, the World Wildlife Fund would stop fighting them in court as long as the federation complied with the agreement.

In 1997, the World Wrestling Federation rolled out a new logo (the scratch logo), which the fund felt was far more readable as “WWF” than their original block logo. In addition, the World Wrestling Federation launched its own website with the domain WWF.com. The World Wildlife Fund saw this as a blatant disregard of their agreement not to use the initials WWF in print.

In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund fought the World Wrestling Federation in a UK court. The federation’s legal team argued that they were allowed to use WWF in the US and that the agreement did not cover the internet. They also mentioned that they did not know the internet would be such a big deal when they registered their domain.

The federation’s legal team also contended that the “scratch logo” was simply an upgrade of the “block logo” and did not violate their agreement with the fund. The court did not find their argument convincing enough and ruled in favour of the World Wildlife Fund. As a legal requirement, the federation had to rebrand their company and chose the name WWE.

Conclusion

The World Wrestling Federation saw a massive surge in popularity in the 1990s. However, the World Wildlife Fund did not want to be associated with an entity that was allegedly involved in drug use, steroids, and sexual abuse. While the two WWFs reached agreements multiple times over the years, the federation often breached the agreement. As a result, the World Wrestling Federation had to change its name to World Wrestling Entertainment.