1997/1998 random questions

By Scott Keith on September 5, 2016

Hi Scott,
In the process of doing the Monday Night Wars rewatch and had a few questions:

1- Jeff Jarrett comes back in late 97 as a "serious" wrestler with shootish vignettes, even dumped on his country gimmick. Fast forward to March of ’98 and he’s Double J again. What happened here?

2- Was the DX attacking WCW stuff in 1998 designed to turn them face? They were still wrestling like heels thru April against Owen and the LOD. Were the WCW attacks just Russo controversy angles and they went with the organic crowd reaction to turn face or was that the goal?

3- did WCW have to pay someone for Sting to dress like the crow? Any idea how that works? I mean he was clearly aping someone else’s intellectual property. Can Roman Reigns just start dressing like Batman if he wanted to without lawsuits being filed?

Thanks for your time.

1. He was a total flop in that role and they decided to try to cut their losses by repackaging him into the more familiar role. They really did intend for him to be a main event star with that Aztec Warrior nonsense, because that was Vince’s first big coup of the Monday Night Wars and he wanted to make it count.

2. It was the organic crowd reaction that they went with. Clearly the goal was to make them the top heels after Wrestlemania (just look at the beatdown in the cage match where the NAO joined!) and then plans changed. Just think how stubborn they’d be about it TODAY.

3. I’d have to defer once again to one of our resident legal eagles like MGK on the subject, but as I understand it, you can’t really trademark vague characteristics like a trench coat and mime makeup, so as long as WCW wasn’t trying to claim that Sting was actually the trademarked Crow character from the comics and/or terrible movie series, they wouldn’t have a case. However, if Reigns was out there in a suit with the Batman symbol and bat ears, he’s clearly infringing on someone else’s clearly defined copyright. But if he wore a grey superhero suit reminiscent of Batman without actually claiming to be the character, he’d likely be safe. But again, I’m not a lawyer and this is not a substitute for actual legal advice.

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