wrestling / News

UPDATED: WWE Unhappy With ROH Selling Kevin Steen Action Figure

June 10, 2015 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas

UPDATE: PWInsider is also reporting this news from their own source, noting that the ROH/Figures Toy Company deal was a factor in WWE’s reported talks with WWN. The site notes that WWE “took notice” when the Kevin Steen figure was announced, and that WWE does not want to get into a situation where if they sign someone from the indies, they’re locked into a five year deal (as FTC is signing talents to) which means they have to go through a third party to license the merchandise.

The site notes that Figures was the company that sued them a while back for allegedly screwing them over on the production and sale of title replica belts, which was eventually settled between the two companies.

The source have the site the implication that if an indy talent has signed a third party merchandising deal that has any sort of exclusivity, that WWE isn’t interested in signing them. There will always be exceptions to the rule but that is the general idea.

ORIGINAL: WWE is reportedly unhappy with Ring of Honor and Figure Toy Company’s recent Kevin Steen action figure release. With Owens’ being WWE’s biggest new star, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the company isn’t pleased that a non-WWE company was the first to release an action figure since Owens hit the main roster, especially considering that the Steen and Owens characters look essentially the same.

WWE officials are now trying to prevent this from happening in the future and are considering how to get guys with big potential into NXT and thus signed to merchandising deals before they go to ROH or TNA, companies with merchandising deals. Complicating that is the fact that a lot of indie talent, including several who have tried out for WWE in the past few weeks, have signed five year deals with Figure Toy Company.

This also means that the plan is not to sign talent from ROH or TNA for the main roster and to spread the word that young talent with WWE aspirations should not sign with either company. One person said that this came about because of both the Figure Toy Company deal and the ROH/Destination America deal, both of which came about at the same time and WWE had no advance knowledge of. The plan may not apply to talent signed and kept in NXT, as there is some interest in some of the TNA guys whose contracts are expiring to work in the developmental brand and it isn’t the same as the main roster.