Why WWE Sent a Legal Letter to The Young Bucks, What WWE Is Claiming, Fallout from RAW Invasion

We noted earlier how The Young Bucks revealed that they received a cease & desist letter from WWE after staging a Bullet Club “invasion” outside of this week’s WWE RAW in Ontario, California.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports WWE claimed in the letter that The Young Bucks were using their intellectual property, mainly the “Too Sweet” hand gesture. WWE claims ownership of the hand gesture due to their purchase of WCW’s intellectual property. The Bucks have removed all references to “too sweet” from t-shirts for sale on their YoungBucksMerch.com website and on their ProWrestlingTees.com store.

The Bullet Club appeared outside of the Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario after doing a signing at a Hot Topic store in the area earlier that day. The “invasion” was filmed for their “Being The Elite” series on YouTube as a continuation of recent storylines they had been doing on the show. The storyline, which essentially turned into reality, was brought on by two things – BC member Cody Rhodes no longer being able to use the Rhodes name since WWE claims it as their property, and The Bucks receiving a cease & desist letter from the owners of Comedy Central’s Rick & Morty Show after they produced a Rick & Morty parody t-shirt.

The storyline on their YouTube show was that there has been a mysterious WWE stooge contacting Cody and suddenly through magic, references to terms they had been sing regularly, like “Too Sweet” and “fuck The Revival,” were mysteriously edited off the show and when they tried to speak the terms, mysteriously they couldn’t. That expanded to the idea of BC member Marty Scurll no longer being able to use his umbrella gimmick because WWE’s Jack Gallagher had stolen the idea. A recentl storyline development on the show had BC member Adam Page being kidnapped with the idea that it was WWE who kidnapped him. The final “BTE” episode that aired before the ROH Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view had Page kidnapped with his mouth duct taped shut, his hands taped together and his eyes taped open while being forced to watch WWE programming.

Regarding the “invasion” outside of RAW, the idea is that The Bullet Club was going to RAW to demand Cody get his name back, Scurll get his umbrella back, The Young Bucks got their catchphrases back and Page got revenge for being kidnapped. During the skit outside of RAW, they parodied the DX – WCW Nitro invasion from years ago as Nick Jackson used a loudspeaker to say they were coming to get their friends Finn Balor, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. This was the same bit Sean Waltman did during the DX skit, saying he was coming to get his friends Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. The skit outside of RAW had other references to the DX segment as well. They also poked at WWE for having to paper the show with a fan saying he was only there because he got free tickets. Dave Meltzer speculates on this being the one thing in the skit that WWE really wouldn’t be happy about.

WWE’s cease & desist letter, which was sent the next day, claims intellectual property violations for The Bucks’ “Too Sweet Journey” DVD, the “Too Sweet T-shirts,” photos of The Bucks with the “Too Sweet symbol” and their “Too Sweet women’s leggings.” The letter threatened legal action for damages up to $150,000 per item, any profits made on the sale of those items and legal fees.

It’s worth noting that WWE never registered ownership of the drawing of the “Kliq hand gesture” until 2015. While WWE never used the symbol for years, it became a regular part of New Japan Pro Wrestling and The Bullet Club when Prince Devitt started the group before he came to WWE and became Finn Balor. The Bucks started marketing the symbol in 2013 but The Observer notes that getting into a legal battle with WWE over the symbol would be costly for them.