[The Official WWE / NXT Discussion Thread *May Contain Spoilers*]

There's two marks in the freely searchable trademark system for Punk, one filed 3-28-2007, and a new one filed 6-22-2011. They cover: "Clothing, namely, tops, jackets, bottoms, underwear, pajamas; footwear, namely, shoes, sneakers, slippers; headwear, namely, hats," while the old 2007 mark covered "Entertainment services, namely, wrestling exhibitions and performances by a professional wrestler and entertainer; providing wrestling news and information via a global computer network."

 

So as of today, WWE has rights to the wrestling name and merch.

 

Edit: Colt Cabana has no registered trademark, so if he used his own name it would presumably involve signing over his rights to the character.

 

To my knowledge Punk still owns the rights to his name, he's just allowed them to use it on merchandise.

[The Official WWE / NXT Discussion Thread *May Contain Spoilers*]

The whole Danielson makes me a bit annoyed, but if he did get himself fired due to doing something violent on TV, it's sadly his own fault