Originally posted by DJ FrostyFreezeHe can probably keep 'MVP', right?
I wouldn't think so. It's not derived from his real name, and he never used it before he was in WWE developmental. I'm not sure what the rules are for Japan, but if he showed up in TNA I think he'd have to use something else.
I know "MVP" arent his real initials, but those initials are so generic and existed way before the character came along, I thought it might be a different story. But you're probably right.
If he came up with MVP before joining the WWE, then he can use it again, unless for some reason he signed all rights away to them forever. If it was something that was created by him or the company once he joined them, then they would have the trademark for it. Anyone using "MVP" as a name or gimmick nickname in the context of wrestling would have to get McMahon's permission.
He could use a name like Mark Vincent Powell, but it would be like how the WWE can say "World Wrestling Federation", but can't abbreviate it since they don't have the trademark on WWF.
The only thing I think he could do is pull a Warrior and legally change his name. I think he'd be better off just buying new tights and trying to start over with what he's learned, plus a more serious look.
I am not really surprised by all this; I thought MVP was seriously a lot more entertaining as a heel than a face. Maybe if MVP stayed heel or went back to it, he would have received a better push because it seemed he got more crowd reaction as a heel than a face.
The Stacy video works for me using MPlayer (see http://mplayerhq.hu), which says that it uses the Sorenson codec. I did, however, have to manually reconstruct the URL of the movie based on the page source, because they use stinky invalid HTML.