>Those close to him note he is politically very left leaning and comes from a working class family in Austria and they don’t believe had he personally known he’d have been okay with being named after a Nazi. In the past he never wanted to bring negative publicity to pro wrestling in Germany and this would have done so. Stark means “strong” in German. Gunther Stark, the Nazi U-boat commander is not that well known of a name in Germany or Austria. The belief is more that WWE came up with the name and failed to research it before trying to trademark it, or if they did find out, thinking the name was so little known that nobody would care.
Link to this week's newsletter: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-24-2022-observer-newsletter-wwe-aew-q4-numbers-wwe-takes-shot
WWE ABANDONS GUNTHER STARK TRADEMARK
By Mike Johnson & Steven Fernandes on 2022-01-20 08:46:00
WWE has already abandoned their trademark filing on the name Gunther Stark.
WWE filed that they had abandoned the registration of the trademark yesterday, 1/19.
As noted yesterday on PWInsider.com, the trademark registration blew up in WWE's face on both social media and with a number of mainstream outlets in the United States and internationally. The Gunther Stark name, devised as the new ring name for the former WALTER, was identical to a Nazi U-Boat Commander in World War II.
WWE moved forward with WALTER's new ring name this past Tuesday, instead using "Gunther" without the last name.
And it is infuriating. Ryan Satin tweeted that he lost a friend because he took WWE's side on this matter. How stupid is that? Hell, probably some of our names coincide with soldiers who took part in horrible things.
The entire thing is just to spite WWE. You can't tell me that the outrage would be similar if NJPW, AEW or the indies did this. It'd be justified instantly as an easy mistake. I'm not sure if there'd be any outrage at all if another company did this.
The sheer stupidity of this controversy is hilarious and annoying at the same time.
Just Google “Walter Hahn WW2” and the very first link leads to a Nazi soldier. I just love how no one blinked at this, and yet are suddenly history experts when a more German-sounding name is brought.
And because of this, I’m starting to lean to the idea that this name change was Walter’s idea.
Yes, WWE now own the name "Gunther Stark" and yes, that name has an unfortunate history that someone should have googled, not least their IP department.
However - WWE have always renamed talent so they can own the copyright. This protects both the performer and the company, giving them an identity they can leave behind if the gimmick fails, and means WWE can own and produce every version of merchandise they might want to, without needing to check someone else's IP - not many independent wrestlers do copyright checks before establishing their gimmick.
I'd like to give WWE the benefit of the doubt here that Walter was consulted and even chose the new name, as has been the case with other performers. On top of that, that they saw the online buzz in the last few days, and went straight to dropping the last name (which would happen in the fullness of time in WWE anyway). But let's see where we are next week.
I'm not sure "Gunther" is good - the last TV Gunther was a bitchy coffee shop owner - but it's Walter. He will continue to do Walter matches, and if you had told me before seeing him that this guy's name was Gunther, but changed it to "Walter" for WWE I'd have laughed you out of the building for giving him a nerd name. We are where we are - if he's as good as people think, he will build the credibility of the name.
Or WWE will have a vaguely-Nazi hate group in NXT because Vince secretly loves Hitler, apparently.
That's it, just a first name, and a fucking stupid one at that. Also, are they not aware that Walter was the name of MANY nazis back in the day?!
Shame on WWE. Gunther's career is done now because they changed his name. Now he'll never get over. I'm a huge fan btw.
What do the brahs and bras think of this bollocks going on with the sports entertainer formerly known as WALTER?
From what I gather they were originally going to change his name to Gunther Stark, even taking out a trademark on the name, but then discovered that if you search for Gunther Stark on Google it brings up things about a German U-boat captain so decided that just calling him Gunther would suffice.
Before you ask... yes... Bryan "Tier 1" Alvarez actually said that.
