Former WWE Superstar Gangrel spoke about how obtaining the rights to his ring name angered WWE Chairman Vince McMahon on the latest edition of his Fanging & Bangin podcast.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Gangrel on his trademark lawsuit for his ring name: “They brought me back to do an anniversary RAW or a battle royal, I did that, and then the next morning, again, boom, lawsuits from a different company. Then it went to court and the judge, he pretty much took the gavel and hammered down and said, ‘if I ever see this case again in court, everybody’s in trouble. The person that’s wrestling as Gangrel is Gangrel.’”
On his belief that getting the rights to Gangrel angered Vince McMahon: “Because Gangrel was a clan, not a vampire but a vampire clan, but whatever. I had to portray the character for all this time. But still, you couldn’t use it in certain ways, and WWE kind of abandoned all hope on that name, they just pressed it to the side. Somewhere in the process, there were some things that weren’t filled, and I ended up getting the rights to Gangrel. Its trademark is registered everywhere for sports entertainment, clothing lines, action figures, for whatever. I have it now, I have the trademark registry to Gangrel. I think stuff like that pisses Vince McMahon off personally and in a corporate sense. To avoid all of that, they just give people their own names, they just messed up on that one. They don’t want you to take what they’ve spent three years investing, which is kind of crappy on their part but it’s just business, and go somewhere else. They want you to have to go change your name. It’s just a business thing for them. I gotta stay on it and keep filing things.:
Gangrel on how Edge using The Brood entrance music at SummerSlam 2021 apparently cost him an AEW appearance: “In MLW, I’m Gangrel, no questions, no problems. They changed my music. The music is different, it’s got a different hard-hitting theme to it. I think WWE probably went back, they didn’t have the rights [to The Brood song], the guy who did the music originally [did], and when they let him go, he had the rights to that and that’s how I was able to use it at the schools, advertising stuff. WWE must have circled back when Edge was doing the [vampire stuff] and got that music. I’m not 100% sure but just guessing. There’s so much I don’t even understand. Anything, numbers, legal, all that stuff makes me nervous and spinny.”
