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Nathaniel Tatha-Nanandji, who promoted WCWA Wrestling in Arkansas, filed a lawsuit against WWE, its corporate owner TKO as well as WWE videogame licensee 2K Games, Inc. and several other associated 2K companies. before the United States District Court for the Western Division of Arkansas, Fayetteville Division on 12/30/25, PWInsider.com has learned.
The 30-page lawsuit alleges that Tatha-Nanandji "is responsible for the creative direction, booking, staging, filming, and publishing of WCWA's events and audiovisual content" and that starting around August 2019, he developed a "distinctive, repeatable visual sequence for a faction in WCWA, known as Tier 1. The sequence is described as follows in the lawsuit:
a. The entrance, in-ring, or ringside action comes to a deliberate halt, and the Tier 1 members converge into a purposeful, hierarchical formation oriented toward the hard camera or primary broadcast camera, with the formation staged for frontal capture in a locked-off or minimally moving wide or mid-wide shot, ensuring all performers remain fully visible within the frame.
b. The group enters a brief but intentional pause, holding position while the camera framing remains fixed and centered, allowing audience attention to settle on the assembled faction and establishing the formation as a posed visual configuration rather than incidental movement.
c. A designated leader or cueing performer initiates the sequence by raising one arm upward as a visual cue, typically captured in a low-angle medium or medium-close framing that visually elevates the cueing performer within the composition while maintaining contextual visibility of supporting members.
d. Other members follow in staggered but coordinated succession, each raising one arm with a single finger extended, as the camera holds its position or slightly widens to preserve group coherence, allowing the synchronized gesture to complete fully within frame and emphasizing collective participation rather than individual motion.
e. In post-beatdown or domination contexts, the camera remains deliberately positioned, most commonly in a locked-off or minimally adjusted wide or mid-wide frontal angle from ringside or hard-camera orientation, to include the subdued opponent within the same frame as the assembled Tier 1 members. The opponent is visually subordinated within the composition, while the faction occupies the dominant, upright portion of the frame, ensuring that hierarchy, submission, and control are conveyed through spatial and camera-based composition rather than motion.
f. The sequence culminates in a sustained, static, camera-facing tableau, commonly framed symmetrically and held for a perceptible duration without camera movement, functioning as a recurring visual punctuation mark that conveys hierarchy, loyalty, submission, and collective authority, among related expressions of unified control, before the sequence is released and the scene transitions.
Making it clear he is not claiming ownership over any single gesture or pose, but the sequence listed, Tatha-Nanandji created the sequence in April 2019 and has never abandoned the sequence event during times of "restructuring consistent with independent wrestling promotions." Tatha-Nanandji also listed two different videos from WCWA events that were copyrighted and provided proof of those copyrights. The events were titled "Monsters and Men: Xander Gold vs Brian Cage Oct '19" and "WCWA Rematch: Purge 1 Double D vs Dusty Gold." The copyrights were issued by the United States Copyright Office in September 2025.
In the lawsuit, Tatha-Nanandji alleges an independent professional wrestler who performed for WCWA later appeared on WWE Smackdown. This wrestler is never named in the lawsuit, but that the wrestler asked for WCWA footage that WWE scouting personnel could use "for review." Tatha-Nanandji stated he oversaw the preparation of the material and provided it to the wrestler, but within "weeks" the sequence he created for WCWA was now being used on WWE programming. Tatha-Nanandji also alleged a WWE "employee" attended a WCWA event in March 2019 and maintained contact with him through 2021. That WWE employee is not named in the lawsuit.
Tatha-Nanandji claims, "Through these direct and indirect channels, including internal scouting review and publicly accessible WCWA content on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, WWE and its affiliates had a reasonable opportunity to view, study, and copy the Tier 1 Audiovisual Sequence prior to and during Defendants' development and exploitation of substantially similar audiovisual content."
The lawsuit then alleges:
"On information and belief, beginning in or around September 2021, after Plaintiff had created and publicly used the Tier 1 Audiovisual Sequence, WWE introduced a visually and narratively similar ritualized audiovisual sequence for its "Bloodline" faction (the "Bloodline Sequence").
As deployed in WWE programming, the Bloodline Sequence consists of a coordinated audiovisual progression that includes, in combination:
a. Bloodline members aligning together in a deliberate, hierarchical formation oriented toward the primary broadcast camera;
b. A brief, intentional timing pause during which the formation is held;
c. A lead cue initiated by a designated member, followed by staggered but synchronized arm raises by the remaining members, each extending a single finger upward; and
d. A sustained, static, camera-facing tableau functioning as the climactic moment of acknowledgment within the segment."
The lawsuit alleges that WWE's "narrative framework" for their sequence is "a narrative function comparable to that performed by WCW's Tier1 Audiovisual Sequence" and provides photos of each version as evidence of their case and breaks down camera shots and "temporal architecture" that are "substantially similar" between the two.
The lawsuit also claims that WWE has "licensed" the sequence to the WWE 2K video game series for the last several years.
Tatha-Nanandji alleges he first became aware of the similarity in January 2024 after reviewing and comparing the two and that he informed the defendants in October 2025 by letter that he was asserting WCWA's "longstanding common law trademark and trade dress rights" to the sequence. He alleges that despite notice of his claims, the defendants have continued their actions.
Tatha-Nanandji has demanded a jury trial and is seeking a declaration that the defendants have infringed on his copyrights from the WCWA material, a permanent injunction preventing them from continuing to do so - and to prevent the use of any footage featuring that material, the disablement of that allegedly infringing material from WWE 2K's video game properties, damages and any profits the defendants created by use of the allegedly infringing material proven at trial, an order requiring defendants to provide full accounting and records of revenue and profits made from the allegedly infringing material, the destruction of all allegedly infringing material, attorney's fees, a declaration that the defendant's "use of the Bloodline sequence and related audiovisual configurations" infringes on the plaintiffs' ownership and constitutes unfair competition, and an order requiring corrective advertising to dispel any confusion between the two works, among other requests.
Nathaniel Tatha-Nahandji's LinkedIn account cites the WCWA being formed in Springdale, Arkansas in 2012 and still being active. However, a website for the WCWA promotion has not been updated in years. The WCWA Facebook page was last updated in May 2021 while their YouTube page has not posted any new content since April 2021. A Google listing for the WCWA promotion lists its Springdale address as "permanently closed." The last event promoted as taking place by the promotion on their Twitter account was May 2021.
Court records do not indicate that the defendants have been served as of this writing.
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