A year ago, after the Chiefs beat the Bengals in the AFC championship game, earning a spot in Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce had some words for Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval, who had engaged in some smack talk before the game: “Know your role and shut your mouth, you jabroni!” Kelce yelled into Jim Nantz’s microphone.
It turns out Kelce was quoting what is now considered intellectual property.
That phrase, made famous by former WWE wrestler Dwayne Johnson, is now owned—along with more than 20 other nicknames and phrases—by Johnson as part of a deal struck when he joined the WWE’s board in January. Upon his joining the board, TKO Holdings, the group that owns the WWE, handed Johnson ownership of what it calls “Rock IP,” including the nickname The Rock—but a new TKO filing shows that Johnson, 51, also took with him a slew of phrases he made popular decades ago.
In addition to “Jabroni,” a slur reserved for his foes, Johnson now also holds the trademark to his signature line “If you smell that the Rock is cooking,” as well as “The Brahma Bull,” “The Samoan Sensation” (an ode to his ancestry), and “The Great One.” He also owns the IP for “Rock Bottom,” a line he used when defeating an opponent in the wrestling ring.
The rest of the Rock IP includes:
- Rocky Maivia
- Team Corporate
- Rock Nation
- The Nation
- Roody Poo
- Candy Ass
- The Blue Chipper
- The People’s Champion
- The Great One
- Team Bring It
- The Rock Just Bring It
- The People’s Elbow
- Finally, The Rock has come back to …
- It doesn’t matter what …
- Blue Hell
- The millions … (and millions)
- Rockpocalypse
- Project Rock
- The most electrifying man in sports and entertainment
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