In the wrestling world, most superstars don’t use their real-life names as their in-ring names. WWE superstars like Gunther, Finn Balor and more have other names in real life. Bryan Danielson dropped his name Daniel Bryan after leaving WWE to sign with AEW and he has recently made a big revelation that he got into some copyright issues with the Stamford-based promotion in another way, even though he didn’t intend to do so.
Danielson got a legal letter from WWE
Recently, while speaking with Luke James Chats, Danielson revealed that he received a letter from WWE’s legal team over the summer. Not for anything related to his name, but for trying to copyright the “Yes! Yes! Yes! Trademark. The AEW world champion said, “I applied for it but then I got- It wasn’t necessarily a cease and desist. I got some kind of legal letter from WWE. I got an email saying, oh, ‘This is infringing’ on this or that whatever and I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m not trying to sell anybody anything. I just do my thing.”
Danielson didn’t even actively pursue the Yes! Trademark. His lawyer contacted him to tell him he was free to apply for the trademark. Since it didn’t cost much, Danielson said yes and probably didn’t much of it, until he received a letter from WWE informing him that filing would violate their copyright. Bryan didn’t elaborate on what WWE actually meant or whether he continued with the filing despite this.
When did the Yes moment in WWE started?
The Yes chant became a moment for Danielson during his build-up to the WrestleMania 30 main event. This moment was once again created during his title win at All In. However, he didn’t join the Yes Chant when making his AEW debut at All Out, as he was not sure if he was legally allowed to. Danielson stated that he respected WWE and did not want to cause any trouble at the time. While the AEW president Tony Khan responded that he didn’t believe that the yes chant was WWE’s intellectual property.
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However, WWE believes that it owns some sort of trademark associated with Danielson’s Yes chant, but it is not the words Yes Yes Yes because that trademark was free. In today’s time, WWE has recently told its superstars that they can keep their ring names even if they leave the organization, so it’s a bit surprising that Danielson was sent a legal letter over a chant.
