With WrestleMania 38 just days away and Seth Rollins given a match at the Grandest Stage of Them All with his opponent to be chosen by Mr. McMahon, it seems there’s more than just rumors to Cody Rhodes coming to WWE.
The rumor has been bouncing around on social media for weeks and is largely accepted as fact at this point by many.
Since Cody left AEW, just about everyone expected him to go to the WWE. Even the WWE teased him leading up to WrestleMania in a few days and the speculation has been about who he’ll face.
The WWE may be embracing being more open and proactive when it comes to spoiling their own shows, but they had a lot of help with this one as even when Chris Jericho accidentally-on-purpose announced that Cody was going to WWE.
On a recent Talk is Jericho, Chris had Mike Dockings on the show and they talked about wrestlers’ trademark fights with the WWE when they leave.
Keeping a name
There have been plenty of reports of wrestlers leaving the WWE and having to fight for their name they used since the Indies but the WWE trademarked them so they couldn’t use it afterwards.
Ryback’s the one that comes to mind mainly because he’s been the most public about it, but Cody had a recent battle with WWE over the name Rhodes, hence why he was called Cody in AEW.
While Jericho talked about what Dockins does (he’s a gimmick lawyer), he mentioned Cody going to the WWE when it came to trademarking names.
Special thanks to Wrestlinginc.com for the transcript.
“I’m pulling back the curtain a little bit on the wrestling business,” Jericho said. “You’re gonna discover how I’ve been able to be Chris Jericho no matter what company I work for or where I wrestle. You’ll hear how Danhausen gets to keep his name and gimmick from promotion to promotion. How Cody got to reclaim Rhodes from WWE even though he’s back in WWE…”
Trademarks are where a wrestler’s livelihood comes from in many ways as one builds up their brand and fans know them by that name.
There have been reports that the WWE offers or wants to buy the rights to a wrestler’s name when they come to the WWE to make them a WWE property and continue making money off them after they leave the company.
Now that Cody’s reportedly back with WWE, we’re curious if he’ll be Cody Rhodes or just Cody. Looks like we’ll have to wait for WrestleMania 38 to find out.
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