When Did WWF Changed Name to WWE?

The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) had to change its name to the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) due to the lawsuit initiated by the World Wildlife Fund over the initials back in 2002.

However, this was not the first time that the company changed it’s name. We will take a look at the history of name changes and why the name was changed to WWE in this article.

From CWC to WWF

The history of WWE is really long. The company was first called Capitol Wrestling Corporation(CWC) when it began in 1952 under Jess McMahon. It is the same name after which WWE Performance Center was renamed.

Then in 1963, it became WWWF(World Wide Wrestling Federation) when Vincent J McMahon took over the operation. Back in 1979, after a few years of Vincent K McMahon joining the business, he pushed his father to rename the company to the World Wrestling Federation.

One year later, he founded Titan sports and purchased the WWF. He then applied also applied for the trademark of the initials “WWF” for the company. When the company went public in 1999, it was registered as World Wrestling Federation Entertainment.

Court Case with World Wildlife Fund

In 1994, the World Wildlife Fund asserted that the World Wrestling Federation signed a legal settlement assuring the World Wrestling Federation borders their treatment of the WWF acronym outside of North America. In return, the World Wildlife Fund accepted not to seek further litigation against the company.

Talking about this dispute, Linda McMahon told New York Times, ”When we first registered our name in the early 1980’s, the wildlife fund did not raise any challenges. But the fund got a Swiss injunction against the wrestling federation in 1993, and threatened to take it around the world.”

This soon turned out to be the case as World Wildlife Fund sued Vince McMahon’s company for using the WWF acronym in the UK in the year 2000. The Court of Appeal found World Wrestling Federation had violated the 1994 agreement. One of the main violations noted was creating the website wwf.com and the name was very close to the wwf.org site of World Wildlife Fund.

Changing to Entertainment

After losing the case in the UK, Vince McMahon was forced to rename his company’s name. On May 5, 2002, the name of the company and the promotion was changed to World Wrestling Entertainment(WWE). Right after that, WWE launched a huge marketing campaign with the slogan “Get the F out” to promote its new name.

In coming years, the use of the term World Wrestling Entertainment was phased out and the company is now simply called WWE as it ventured into the production of movies, podcasts, documentaries, TV shows, and other shows.

14 Comments

  1. the WWF is so fake and stoopid these days they should take that crap off the air put it under a rock where it should belong ban the wwf or wwe whatever you wanna call that crap it was good the day it came out until 2001 after that it came to be totally crap vincent mcmahon sure got some huge elephant ears they can fly him away that 88year old man

    1. Shut your mouth you Rudy Poo. Stop talking bad about those heroic men. They’ve done more for the world and for sports entertainment then you’ll ever do in your job cleaning the used tampons out of public women’s restroom toilets. You’re just mad because you’re fat and you probably wanted to be a wrestler but they stopped letting fat guys in during the 90s. Vince McMahon is an American icon and legend. Don’t you dare speak his name again or Roman Reigns will put you in the Figure 69 leg lock and drop a stone cold stunner in your b-hole while DDP thumps your ballsack.

    1. Your breath smells like you’ve been eating fodder out of The Rock’s b-hole after he just got done headlining a match at Summer Slam. And you still have a piece of corn on your lip from his lunch from yesterday.

    2. Yes and no
      95 % of the wrestling are fake
      5% of the wrestling moves are real
      There has been many wrestlers past and present that have been seriously hurt inside and outside of the ring
      The late Andre the Giant
      Almost snapped a wrestlers neck
      Because André did not know his own strength
      Look at Mick Foley and the undertaker cage match
      The top of the cage fell along with milk Foley
      Not only did he land on real thumb tacks he also lost a tooth
      Wrestlers were thrown outside of the ring that either had injuries to their necks some of really passed away
      You want to see the real fake?
      Wrestlemania 3
      Hogan vs André
      Hogan was scared of André
      Hogan did not pick up André over his head
      André jumped into Hogan’s arms
      After André had back surgery
      After wrestlemania
      André got the championships belt
      Who ever thinks Wrestling is 100% fake need to do some research

    1. Shut your mouth Bil Ogle. That sounds like something 2 gay guys do to each other after they get done licking each other’s b-holes. Getting all greased up and rolling around with another muscular dude is totally macho and not even gay in the slightest, unlike your name that sounds like a synonym for tongue-punching somebody’s fartbox.

  2. wrestling is for show an great enterainment some of the shows are great .but some of the shows are getting boring now a days same wrestlers vs each other week by week change it up a bit .bring back some wrestlers

  3. You guys are all idiots. This is just entertainment. We all know it’s scripted. For me back in the day there was nothing like returning home and knowing that i can watch Monday Night Raw or Smack Down depending the day. Because i get to see what Stone Cold is up to, The Rock, The Undertaker, D Generation X and the others. I pity you cause based on your replies you never had the chance to watch the company through its glory days, or you didnt understand wrestling whatsoever.

  4. Every movie and TV show is fake and scripted. Why does Wrestling get singled out? No wrestling fan over the age of 12 believes it real.

  5. Thank you very very very very much much for change the name from WWF to WWE in mid 2002 and do you are All keeping all the shows like RAW and Smackdown with out the expiation Mark and back in 2016 when you are putting smackdown on every Tuesdays as smackdown live and all the way back in 2019 you are change the day of every smackdown back to Thursdays and in about 3 years ago you are putting smackdown back to every Fridays as wheñ it got moved in late 2005 as when the ruthless aggression era came on after the attitude era yours sincerely David clow lavender cottage resident from my own house address which is 351 Rowling road saltwell road bensham Gateshead Tyne and wear ÑE8 4UH

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