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To preface this, I will note that I’ve been a Ric Flair mark for a while. However, that doesn’t change the basic facts I am about to present.

First, some breaking news courtesy of What Culture:

Ric Flair has revealed, via his 'To Be The Man' podcast, that he's personally been invited to attend the 2023 Royal Rumble. That show goes down on 28 January in San Antonio's Alamodome, and there's a small chance the 'Nature Boy' could enter WWE's 30-man match in Texas.

As soon as his so-called last match (not to be confused with his WWE retirement match with Shawn Michaels a while back) earlier this year ended, there was talk of Flair having another return to the ring. Triple H and Flair are close and Triple H has been bringing back other WWE Hall of Famers recently, with reports of Stone Cold Steve Austin coming to Wrestlemania. Flair is also booked to be at Monday Night Raw’s 30th Anniversary show in Philadelphia on January 23, 2023.

Now moving on to Flair’s convergence with Doctor Who….

The picture above is a t-shirt design that I first saw a couple of weeks ago on ProWrestlingTees. As it makes clear on the product page, “All Merchandise is owned by this wrestler, promotion or media organization”.

However, I couldn’t find this shirt on RicFlairShop.com when I looked (I concede I may have missed it due to the site layout) but there’s a “Nature Bond” shirt with Flair as 007 on the new arrivals page.

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The show is celebrating it’s 60th anniversary in 2023. There have been a number of logos and wordmarks associated with the show that BBC filed for the proper trademarks and copyrights for.

On the above shirt, Flair is in front of the TARDIS, the police call box that’s “bigger on the inside” that the Doctor uses to travel through time and space. Flair is in a trench coat and bow tie, reminiscent of the Eleventh Doctor portrayed by Matt Smith. He appears to be holding a sonic screwdriver, which is a tool that all incarnations of the Doctor use a customized version of. There is a DW logo at the bottom that was also used for the show at one point.

The TARDIS is based on a police call box originally designed by the Metropolitan Police Service and is now obsolete. BBC has a trademark on the design for use in merchandising. BBC applied for a trademark for the DW logo in 2009.

From the Doctor Who website:

BBC, DOCTOR WHO, DALEK and TARDIS (word marks, logos & devices) are trademarks of the  British Broadcasting Corporation. Logos © 1996. Doctor Who logos © BBC 1969 and 2009. Dalek image © BBC/Terry Nation 1963.

IANAL, but it looks to me like BBC may have grounds for some action against Flair and Pro Wrestling Tees (part of One Hour Tees).

I also wonder how many Whovians are actually fans of Ric Flair?

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