WWE News: WWE Sends Ring Of Honor’s Young Bucks A Cease & Desist Order For Hand Gesture

The WWE is trying to force a current Ring of Honor tag team to stop using a classic hand gesture. The tag team known as The Young Bucks was recently sent a cease and desist letter for using the “Too Sweet” gesture, which was said to have been made famous within WWE by a stable known as “The Kliq.” The news arrives just days after an “invasion” was staged by Cody Rhodes along with several other Ring of Honor stars to send a message to WWE from the area where Monday’s WWE Raw episode was being held.

The recent news comes via Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin who indicated that WWE has sent a cease and desist letter to The Young Bucks for their use of the “Too Sweet” hand gesture. The report mentions that The Young Bucks have been asked to stop using the WWE’s intellectual property in the ring or on merchandise immediately or they may $150,000 in damages. WWE has also reportedly asked that the two brothers submit a written agreement saying they won’t use WWE’s intellectual property again in the future. It’s unknown at this point if the duo will be fighting the situation or agree to it, but it was mentioned that they have contacted a lawyer and are determining the best course of action.

For those wondering, the “Too Sweet” hand gesture is said to have originated as a secret handshake of sorts used by wrestling stars in WWE and WCW. The gesture was mostly used by a backstage group of wrestling stars referred to as “The Kliq.” In WWE’s article about the “Too Sweet” gesture’s origin, various members of the Kliq and The Club talk about where they believe the hand gesture first came about.

Club member AJ Styles suggests it came from the North Carolina Wolfpack and is the “Wolf Kiss.” Other stars contend the “Too Sweet” came from the WCW’s NWO stable. One of the NWO’s members, Kevin Nash, said it was called the “Turkish Wolf.” The hand signal was used by various NWO stars over their time with WCW.

The WWE purchased WCW 16 years ago which also granted them rights to the wrestling company’s various copyrights. The “Too Sweet” hand gesture is shown in the photo above being used by all of the members of the “Kliq” group at a previous WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony. They included Sean “X-Pac” Waltman, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Shawn Michaels.

There are reports that WWE tried to file paperwork over that particular copyright for the gesture several years ago. There still seems to be some contention as to whether the WWE officially owns the property. There’s also the fact that their tag team The Club (AJ Styles, Finn Balor, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson) has used the gesture before heading to WWE as an ode to NWO. One has to wonder why there was no legal action earlier.

It’s believed by some that WWE has decided to go forth with the latest legal action due to the situation involving Cody Rhodes and The Bullet Club this past Monday. Rhodes, a former worker within WWE, is now part of the popular Ring of Honor faction The Bullet Club, but goes by just his first name. He brought his wife Brandi along with fellow ROH Bullet Club stars Marty Scurll, The Young Bucks, and Adam Page to an outdoors demonstration in California.

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They held the mini event outside the area where the latest episode of WWE Raw was set to take place later that day. During their invasion, a group of fans surrounded them as Rhodes delivered a famous speech from the movie Independence Day and then led the crowd in a rallying chant. A video was later released on YouTube as part of a regular series that Ring of Honor’s Bullet Club puts out. During that video, they brought up WWE going after them for using the famous D-Generation X “Suck It” and crotch chop motions in the ring, as well as for preventing Cody from using his last name outside of WWE.

With rumors that WWE head honcho Vince McMahon was not very amused by the antics, it appears that the cease and desist letter is the latest in Mr. McMahon’s attempts to go after some of the competition.

Update (9/29/17): The Young Bucks have recently added a “Cease and Desist” t-shirt to their merchandise catalog which has “Too Sw#%T” at the bottom of it.

[Featured Image by WWE]