Do you smell what The Rock is cookin’?
According to a new corporate filing, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson now owns the rights to several words and phrases linked to his WWE persona.
Johnson was added to TKO’s Board of Directors last month, and he also gained the IP and trademark rights to “The Rock”. Now, he also has the rights to “jabroni”, “Roody Poo”, “Candy Ass”, “Jabroni”, “If you smell what The Rock is cooking,” and a number of others.
The full list submitted is as follows:
“Rock IP” means any and all Intellectual Property Rights throughout the world at any time owned by the TKO Group Parties, or any of their respective Affiliates, whether registered or unregistered, relating to (a) the following ring names and taglines: “The Rock”, “Rocky Maivia”, “Team Corporate”, “Rock Nation”, “The Nation”, “Roody Poo”, “Candy Ass”, “Jabroni”, “If you smell what The Rock is cooking”, “The Samoan Sensation”, “The Blue Chipper”, “The Brahma Bull”, “The People’s Champion”, “The Great One”, “Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth”, “Team Bring It”, “The Rock Just Bring It”, “The People’s Elbow”, “Rock Bottom”, “Finally, The Rock has come back to …”, “It doesn’t matter what…”, “Blue Hell”, “The millions… (and millions)”, “Rockpocalypse”, “Project Rock” and “The most electrifying man in sports and entertainment”, (b) the logos and all other Intellectual Property Rights set forth on Schedule A, (c) all other service marks and trademarks relating to the items in clause (a) and (b) and (c) all other nicknames, caricatures, voice, signature, gestures, routines, costumes or parts of costumes, accessories, crowns, relating to the items in clause (a) , (b) or (c).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, WWE has been granted a license to use the Rock IP “for certain categories and products for 10 years.” In that time, Johnson can’t license the IP to businesses competitive with TKO.
During an interview on CNBC’s Squawk On The Street, The Rock discussed what it means to own the name.
“There’s the business side of that, as we we know. There’s the economic side of that. But also, it goes much deeper than that. This idea, the name of The Rock, for me, I owe that name everything. Without that name, there would be no wrestling career, there would be no Hollywood career. But also, that name was a derivative name of my dad, Rocky Johnson. He was the first black tag team champions in WWE. A trailblazer, paved the way, man of color, for a kid like me to be embraced in a bigger way when I came along. So this is one of the reasons why this deal is so unprecedented, the one that I was able to do, along with Ari here.”
The Rock went on to credit Ari Emanuel for saying yes to the deal. He also stressed the importance of the name and how special it is.
The Rock: The Name Allowed Me To Be Me
“Again, I want to acknowledge Ari and give him his flowers because at the end of the day, he had a million reasons to say no, but he found a reason to say yes,” The Rock said. “The reason why is because he understood, as he told me face to face, this is your name and it comes from your family. That’s important to me. So family is very important to us, and the name The Rock, this is why it becomes invaluable.
“The street valuation of the name The Rock, it’s got some heft behind it, but more important than that, it’s something that I earned, I built, and I owe so much to that wild lunatic called The Rock. By the way, I told [Ari] this last night. The greatest benefit of now completely owning the name The Rock, no gimmicks, no BS, across the board, full ownership, is the name The Rock years ago, really allowed me to be me, and that’s very special.”
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