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Wrestlers tussle with wildlife group over powerful brand
Vince McMahon, the impresario behind the World Wrestling Federation, has just gotten body-blocked by a group of nature lovers. And now his recognizable WWF logo and website might be in danger.
Earlier this month a British judge ruled that McMahon's company had gone too far in using the initials "WWF," overstepping limits established in a 1994 agreement with the World Wildlife Fund, a nature advocacy charity headquartered in Switzerland that also uses the WWF moniker. The court could force McMahon to alter or even scrap use of the letters on the WWF website and other promotional materials, and perhaps forfeit the domain name entirely, which might pose an enormous and expensive marketing challenge.
If it weren't for this battle, it's unlikely the two WWFs would have much to do with each other. McMahon's federation produces garish and extremely popular professional wrestling spectacles filled with muscle-bound men and women spewing creative insults at one another. It's not the kind of fare normally associated with the wildlife group, which, according to its mission...