The Big Guy might have his Ryback stage name firmly under control, but his signature catchphrase might be a bit more difficult to secure.
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When Ryback, real name Ryback Allen Reeves, left the WWE earlier this year, many assumed he would have to ditch the Ryback name and other various character specific traits in future bookings. That was the case early on in regards to the name Ryback, as in other promotions he’s been going by “The Big Guy”.
If you’ve ever stopped by his online store, you’ll notice that the “Feed Me More” slogan is everywhere, including the web address. You’ll find his slogan on t-shirts, hats, and even nutritional supplements, so it makes sense that he would attempt to trademark the term. Unfortunately for Ryback, the WWE beat him to it (via WrestleZone).
Ryback registered his trademark for “Feed Me More” on August 1, but on October 22nd, the USPTO suspended any forward movement on his trademark. That delay is due to the WWE’s previous trademarking of the phrase, which occurred in January. Since that supersedes his trademark, he now has to wait for the WWE trademark to either finish and complete, which would take away his claim completely, or abandon the trademark, allowing his claim to resume.
It will be interesting to see how WWE approaches this. It’s not like it hasn’t done some petty things in the past to wrestlers no longer on the roster, and going forward with a claim would be a way to stick it to Ryback, especially after he aired some behind the scenes discussions between him and the company on his new podcast. Of course, he also changed his name to get around WWE keeping his Ryback name exclusively, and that probably peeved some behind the scenes as well.
The best thing to do of course would be to abandon it and let Ryback have it, earning some PR goodwill in the process. It remains to be seen if that will actually happen. We’ll just have to wait and see.
