WWE Is Trying to Trademark 'Vice City' Months Before GTA 6 Launches

WWE filed a trademark application for the term Vice City with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on August 4 — just 15 weeks before GTA 6 launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The timing is awkward, to put it mildly.

The filing isn't a land grab against Rockstar. WWE's application covers wrestling and live sports entertainment specifically — exhibitions, broadcasts, fan club services, online newsletters, and blogs in the sports entertainment space. It has nothing to do with video games. The likely reason behind it: wrestler Lola Vice is reportedly leaving NXT and moving up to the main WWE roster, and Vice City is tied to her Miami, Florida roots as part of her character branding. The trademark is still pending and hasn't been granted yet.

The awkward part isn't the legal conflict — it's the optics. GTA 6 is set in Vice City, a location that's been part of the GTA franchise since the early 2000s. On top of that, WWE's video game partner is 2K, which publishes the WWE 2K series. 2K is owned by Take-Two Interactive — the same parent company that owns Rockstar Games. So WWE is essentially filing a trademark that brushes up against a brand belonging to a company in its own corporate neighborhood.

Whether Take-Two's lawyers reach out to WWE over the next few weeks remains to be seen. The trademark scopes are different enough that an actual legal clash seems unlikely, but the timing and the corporate web make this one of the stranger stories to come out of the weeks leading up to GTA 6's launch.