The Tampa Bay Times reports
TAMPA — Professional wrestlers have a nickname for Michael Dockins.
The “Gimmick Attorney.”
A “gimmick” is a term for a wrestler’s in-ring persona and anything that defines their character. Dockins’ legal specialties include trademarking those gimmicks.
“It’s a niche area of the law,” Dockins said. “But wrestling is a huge industry.”
Dockins is based out of the Shumaker law firm’s office in Toledo, Ohio, where he resides. But, because the Tampa Bay area is where many professional wrestlers live, Dockins has split time in the Tampa office since taking on the specialty in late 2018.
“You go where the work is,” Dockins said. And while he is not the only attorney who represents wrestlers in trademark matters, Dockins said he is “most definitely the most prolific.”
He has filed nearly 150 trademarks on behalf of wrestlers, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s website. Those include the names for WWE’s Ashley Flair (real name Ashley Fliehr) and All Elite Wrestling’s Chris Jericho (real name Chris Irvine) of the Tampa area. Other wrestlers can’t use those character names.
“God forbid that someone who also wrestled as Chris Jericho isn’t trained and he hurts someone,” Dockins said. “It is going to make news. That could damage the real Chris Jericho’s name if people think it was him.”
A wrestler sometimes gains fame in one promotion but then joins another and changes their character name, Dockins said. A trademark will stop others from claiming the former name and building off the fame. The wrestler who popularized that name can later return to it.
Aerial Hull’s “Big Swole” wrestling persona is on the rise, earning national fame since signing with All Elite Wrestling, which has the show Dynamite on TNT.
Not long after joining the promotion last summer, the Tampa area resident learned that wrestlers in lesser-known promotions were also going by Big Swole, or a variation of the name.
Read the full article at https://www.tampabay.com/sports/pro-wrestling/2021/04/05/tampas-gimmick-attorney-helps-wrestlers-trademark-their-characters/
