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From 1979 to 2002, what we now know today as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It was a name that carried a sense of authority and history. Derived from Vince McMahon Sr.'s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), one could trace the legacy of "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers to Bruno Sammartino to Hulk Hogan to Stone Cold Steve Austin. You utter the initials WWF and even those farthest from professional wrestling know what you're talking about.
Enter the World Wildlife Fund and Vincent Kennedy McMahon's ego.
In a 1994 agreement, Titan Sports, Inc (the World Wrestling Federation's parent company at the time) entered into an agreement with World Wide Fund for Nature (known as World Wildlife Fund in the United States) that the initials "WWF" belonged solely to the Swiss conservation group. The World Wrestling Federation would completely cease using those three letters from that point on.
Again, this was in 1994.
As most know, though, the World Wrestling Federation continued to use the initials up until the U.K. Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that the agreement had been breached. The World Wrestling Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment and began using the initials WWE. While the original and "New Generation" logos were allowed to remain unaltered, the infamous "Scratch" logo was forced to be blurred out in all future reproductions of events. It has angered pro wrestling fans to no end that we cannot watch the brilliance of the Attitude Era in high definition without having half of our screen blurred.
That is, until now.
If you paid close attention to Raw 1000, you might have noticed that replays were clean and unaltered. According to PWInsider the WWE and WWF have reached a settlement that will allow the pro wrestling company to "use older archival material and footage with the WWF letters and the scratch logo." With the WWE Network (eventually) launching, it would be an embarrassment for the WWE to hide the iconic logo.
In all honesty, it took the WWE far too long to come to terms with the WWF. Just because Vince thought he could sneak one past the courts doesn't mean we should suffer the eyesore that we've had to deal with.
Now we won't have to.