WWF WWE

[wrestleman]

why did the WWF become WWE and why do they go out of their way to censor any WWF reference?

[Dan Poutsma]

Long story short, they were sued by the other WWF (World Wildlife Fund in the U.S., World Wide Fund for Nature internationally) and lost. The Fund accused the Federation of violating an agreement that the two parties had entered into in the early 90s that allowed the Federation limited use of the WWF initials (the Fund had been using the initials since the early 60s). What it really boils down to is that the Fund was upset that the wrestling organization had become so popular that just about everybody associated the WWF initials with wrestling and not the wildlife group even though they had been known as the WWF long before.

As a result, the Federation changed their name to WWE, shortened their corporate title from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment to just World Wrestling Entertainment, and modified their scratch logo to "get the F out". After they lost, they continued to release DVDs and air older footage in it's original form containing audio-visual references to the WWF and showing the WWF scratch logo, but the Fund complained and obtained another legal victory. So now all audio-visual references to "WWF" have to be cut out/edited and the WWF scratch logo has to be blurred in all the older footage. The old block logo is still acceptable to show, I believe, because it's not as apparent that it says "WWF" and because it was already in place when the original agreement was signed.