World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE[edit]

The official WWE logo from 2002 to 2014

In 2002, the World Wrestling Federation lost a lawsuit initiated by the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF trademark.[27] World Wrestling Federation was forced to rebrand itself, and in May 6,
2002 the company changed its business name to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE). Shortly thereafter, they eliminated all elements that used the term Federation; this affected
licensed merchandise such as action figures, video games, and home video releases with its previous logo, which was replaced by a new "scratch" logo. [citation needed] The last-ever WWF-branded
pay-per-view event was the UK-exclusive Insurrextion in May 4, 2002.[citation needed] During this time, the company launched WWE Studios, which was originally formed as WWE Films.[28]

20022008: Ruthless Aggression Era[edit]

Main article: WWE brand extension

The Undertaker (pictured here in March 2008) has been a highly popular figure in WWE for 25 years, holding an undefeated WrestleMania streak until 2014

In April 2002, with an excess of talent employed as a result of having purchased WCW and ECW, WWE needed a way to provide exposure for all of its talent. This problem was solved by
introducing a "Brand Extension", with the roster split in half and the talent assigned to either Raw or SmackDown! in a mock draft lottery. Wrestlers, commentators and referees became show-
exclusive, and the shows were given separate on-screen General Managers. Shortly thereafter, on the June 24, 2002 episode of Raw, Vince McMahon officially referred to the new era as
"Ruthless Aggression".[29] Later in 2002, after WWE Champion Brock Lesnar announced himself exclusive property of the SmackDown! brand and with the creation of the World Heavyweight
Championship, all the championships became show-exclusive too. Additionally, both Raw and SmackDown! began to stage individual pay-per-view events featuring only performers from that
brand only the major four pay-per-views Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series remained dual-branded.[citation needed] The practice of single-brand pay-per-view events
was abandoned following WrestleMania 23.[30] In effect, Raw and SmackDown were operated as two distinct promotions, with a draft lottery taking place each year to determine which talent was
assigned to each brand. This lasted until August 2011, when the rosters were merged and the Brand Extension was quietly phased out. [citation needed]
Goldberg wrestled his first match in WWE in 2003 at Backlash, defeating The Rock in the main event

The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would
become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this
time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Edge, Chris Benoit, John
"Bradshaw" Layfield and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several
prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its
debut in WWE.

Eddie Guerrero from the famous Mexican Guerrero wrestling family achieved huge stardom during this period. He gained a large fanbase in 2003 on SmackDown!, which lead to a rapid
increase in his popularity, promoting him to main event status and he ultimately won his first world championship, the WWE Championship at No Way Out in 2004. He remained the top wrestler
of the company after winning the WWE title, until his untimely death on November 13, 2005. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, the following year in 2006. Guerrero's death due to his
drug addictions caused WWE to implement WWE Wellness Policy to prevent wrestlers from taking drugs. The circumstances of his death would provide a medium to his off-screen friend Rey
Mysterio to emerge as a major main eventer and win the 2006 Royal Rumble match and the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 22.

However the biggest breakout stars of the Ruthless Aggression era would be both John Cena and Batista. Upon his debut, Cena quickly proved popular due to his "Doctor of Thuganomics"
white rapper gimmick on the SmackDown brand, receiving a WWE Championship match against Brock Lesnar in the winter at Backlash in 2003, and had a major feud with The
Undertaker during the summer. At WrestleMania 21, he won his first world championship when he defeated John "Bradshaw" Layfield the WWE Champion at that time. Cena's popularity soared
when he was drafted to Raw, where he quickly became the face of WWE, a rise not seen since Austin and Hulk Hogan. Cena's popularity has led to him becoming the all-time record "wish
maker" for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting 400 wishes as of February 2014. [31]
John Cena was the biggest star to emerge following the end of the Attitude Era

Beginning in early 2005, Batista's popularity would soar much like Cena's, winning the 2005 Royal Rumble and the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 21. Although Batista
would have major success in the months following his championship win, he would suffer an injury in early 2006 and miss that years WrestleMania. After returning and eventually winning
another world championship, at WrestleMania 23 in 2007, Batista would defend the title to The Undertaker in a classic bout. Both Cena and Batista would not face each other for the first time
until SummerSlam in 2008, with Batista winning.

In August 2002, Shawn Michaels would also return as a wrestler at SummerSlam after a hiatus of over four years. He would achieve great success, winning a World Championship and main
eventing WrestleMania. In 2006, Michaels would reunite with Triple H to once again form the popular 1990s group D-Generation X. They would have major feuds with The Spirit Squad, the
McMahon family, and the newly established Rated-RKO (Edge and Randy Orton), which ended prematurely when Triple H suffered a torn quadriceps muscle. [32]

Money in the Bank [edit]

Main article: Money in the Bank ladder match

The concept for the Money in the Bank match was introduced in March 2005 by Chris Jericho.[33] Jericho pitched the idea on an episode of Raw to general manager Eric Bischoff, who liked it
and promptly signed it for WrestleMania 21 assigning Jericho, Christian, Chris Benoit, Edge, Shelton Benjamin, and Kane to participate in the match. Edge won this inaugural match, and since,
many times the match became a way to help elevate new stars to the main event, with winners such as CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Alberto Del Rio, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.[34] The match
format was originally exclusive to the annual WrestleMania until 2010, when the Money in the Bank pay-per-view debuted.
The return of ECW [edit]

Paul Heyman, the owner of ECW

Main article: ECW (WWE)

By 2005, WWE began reintroducing Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) through content from the ECW video library and a series of books, which included the release of The Rise and Fall
of ECW.

On May 26, 2006, WWE officially announced the relaunch of the franchise with its own show on NBC Universal's Sci Fi Channel, later to be known as Syfy, starting June 13, 2006.[35] Despite
initial concerns that professional wrestling would not be accepted by Sci Fi Channel's demographic, network President Bonnie Hammer stated that she believed ECW would fit the channel's
theme of "stretching the imagination".[36]

On June 13, Paul Heyman, former ECW owner and newly appointed figurehead for the ECW brand, recommissioned the ECW World Heavyweight Championship to be the brand's world
championship and awarded it to Rob Van Dam as a result of winning the WWE Championship at One Night Stand 2006. Under the WWE banner, ECW was presented in a modernized style to
that when it was an independent promotion and was produced following the same format of the other brands, with match rules, such as count outs and disqualifications, being standard.
Matches featuring the rule set of the ECW promotion were classified as being contested under "Extreme Rules" and were only fought when specified otherwise.[35] The brand would continue to
operate until February 16, 2010, when the brand was rendered defunct.

20082013: PG Era[edit]
This era kicked off with WWE going PG from June 23, 2008.[37] In 2009, during a storyline involving then Raw (kayfabe) owner Donald Trump, he initiated the guest host concept, in which
various celebrities, athletes or past wrestlers made weekly appearances and were incorporated to the shows and stories. This lasted from 2009 to 2010. On January 4, 2010, Bret Hart returned
to a WWE ring after a thirteen-year absence, where he reconciled with Shawn Michaels on screen. At WrestleMania XXVI, Michaels retired following a loss to The Undertaker. Another top
performer in Edge retired a year later. Also in 2010, Bret Hart served briefly as the Raw general manager before being replaced by the Anonymous Raw General Manager. In early 2011, The
Rock returned to WWE when he was announced as the host for WrestleMania XXVII.[38] Rock started a cross-generational feud with John Cena, which saw him defeating Cena in a match
at WrestleMania XXVIII.

In August 2011, WWE began to phase out the brand extension when they gave Raw the tagline "SuperShow", meaning wrestlers could appear on both Raw and SmackDown.[39]Throughout the
original WWE brand extension, the company held 9 draft lotteries total. Starting with Raw's 1,000th episode, airing on July 23, 2012, Raw has removed the "SuperShow" tagline and has
extended from two-hours to become a three-hour broadcast, a format that had previously been reserved for special episodes. [40] Superstars such as Alberto Del Rio, CM Punk, Daniel
Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Jeff Hardy, John Morrison and Kofi Kingston were pushed to the spotlight around this period.

The year 2011 saw a highly acclaimed feud between the company's two most high-profile superstars, John Cena and CM Punk. Their match at Money in the Bank on July 17 was named one of
the greatest matches in WWE history. Punk, who had become a top star during the summer of 2011 due to his infamous "Pipe bomb" promo, would hold the WWE Championship for 434 days
before losing to The Rock at the 2013 Royal Rumble, a reign recognized by WWE as the sixth-longest championship reign of all-time.[41] The Rock defended the championship until he was
defeated by John Cena at WrestleMania 29 in a rematch from their bout the previous year. Cena would later drop the title to Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam, immediately after which it started The
Authority storyline that saw Bryan becoming the top babyface in WWE with Cena being out injured.[42]

After Bryan lost a WWE Championship Hell in a Cell match against Orton and started a feud with The Wyatt Family, on several occasions, such as during the 2013 Slammy Awards, fans have
successfully hijacked segments in which Bryan was either not involved in, or involved only secondarily, with his "Yes!" chant. In the case of the "Championship Ascension Ceremony", the fan's
continuing "Yes!" chants forced John Cena to go off-script and acknowledge Bryan (especially since the show was held in Seattle), since that segment was supposed to be about Cena and
Randy Orton's impending championship unification match at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs.[43] On December 15, 2013, the World Heavyweight Championship and WWE Championship were
unified in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match between Cena and Orton, which was won by Orton and the unified championship was renamed the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. [44]
Launch of NXT [edit]
Main article: WWE NXT (TV series)

On February 23, 2010, WWE launched a new program on SyFy called NXT.[45] The premise of the show was a reality-like show which saw eight new stars (Rookies) being mentored by
Superstars from the main roster (Pros), and ran for just over three months, with the last episode of the first season being on June 1, 2010. The winner of the season was Wade Barrett,
mentored by Chris Jericho. Six days after the end of the first season, the rookies, now calling themselves The Nexus, interfered in the Raw main event match between John Cena and CM Punk,
attacking both competitors as well as the announcing team, before dismantling the ring area and surrounding equipment. [46] During the segment, Daniel Bryan strangled ring announcer Justin
Roberts with the announcer's own tie, which WWE reportedly felt was too violent for their family-friendly programming. As a consequence, WWE announced via their official website four days
later that Bryan had been (legitimately) released from his contract.[47][48] NXT lasted for a further three complete seasons, which were won respectively by Kaval, Kaitlyn, and Johnny Curtis. A fifth
season, dubbed NXT Redemption, featuring former NXT participants, never announced a winner and quietly ended with Derrick Bateman being the sole remaining participant. Eventually, the
show morphed into both a television show and WWE's new official development territory, replacing Florida Championship Wrestling, and is permanently located at Full Sail University.[49][50]