Recently there was discussion that WWE had decided to turn over use of wrestler names that got massively misconstrued online. During a conversation regarding Ethan Page's ring name being trademarked, it was noted elsewhere that WWE was allowing talent to use ring names after leaving the company. Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado were then cited.
However, that's not the case. A good example is in Metalik and Lince Dorado themselves. WWE does not have the ability (in most cases) to prevent a talent from using a name that they utilized before coming to WWE and trademarking it. Lince Dorado, Adam Cole, Eric Young, Roderick Strong, Mercedes Martinez, Samoa Joe, Sting, Mustafa Ali, Toni Storm, Kyle O'Reilly, and Chris Jericho are examples. Those had been established well before their WWE runs.
For people using their real names, there's no way to prevent the talent from using them outside the company. This is a reason why Warrior, Ryback, Chyna and Test changed their legal names to their ring names, in an effort to get around that.
There are also some instances of partial names. Christian Cage was never simply "Christian" before and after WWE, so he's able to use that. Metalik used that name before WWE, but not "Gran Metalik," so he's able to use the Metalik portion. Another example is Cody Rhodes, where he went only by "Cody." The reason for this was, WWE owned "Rhodes" as it related to Cody, because he only ever appeared for WWE under that name. Eventually, WWE turned that over to Cody. Funny enough, Brandi was able to use "Brandi Rhodes," because her WWE name was "Eden Stiles." So for example -- AEW could debut a character named Jacob Cena next week if they wanted to, and WWE could debut one named Aqua Ospreay on NXT.
We reached out to numerous sources in WWE who confirmed things for us. Years ago, TNA actually did turn over ability to use ring names, which led to EC3 filing a trademark almost immediately, and continuing to use that moniker in WWE, NXT and NWA.
So for example -- as things stand, Raj Dhesi can't use Jinder Mahal, AJ Francis can't use Top Dolla, and the like.
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