For reasons nobody will ever know: Sean-Puff-Diddy-I-Really-Killed-Tupac-and-Biggie changes his name for the 57th time, anointing himself as “Love,” or “Brother Love”
Anyone’s guess is as good as any; but ultimately, I don’t think it’s any stretch to assume that when the day is over, it’s just Diddy’s way of trying to get attention, as if he felt like the news of the world has lulled too long without any news of himself in it, so he does something stupid like changing his name so that people get to talking about him again. Ironically, I’m writing about it, among countless others, so it’s not entirely a bad tactic, except that the general consensus of scuttlebutt is either along the lines of criticism, or if anything at all, why??
Regardless, to me, this wouldn’t have been even a drip in the bucket if not for the fact that he’s given himself the name of Brother Love on top of just ‘Love.’ Because to wrestling-loving nerds like myself, there’s only one person in the world synonymous with the name Brother Love – the red-faced, white suit wearing, original manager of the Undertaker, Brother Love, portrayed by Bruce Pritchard.
I think it’s a safe bet to assume that Diddy didn’t bother to check for any overlap, or any conflicts of similarity, because he’s an insufferable attention whore that doesn’t really think before he acts, but I’m agitated that he took the namesake of an iconic personality, whether or not he knew of his existence or not. I mean sure, professional wrestling is pretty silly, but it’s also not an invisible niche industry, and Pritchard himself works for the largest, publicly traded wrestling company on the planet, so it’s not like he’s one of the no-name scrubs in the world using the moniker of Brother Love.
Regardless, none of this is really going to change that Diddy is going to go about the rest of his self-aggrandizing life proclaiming himself to be Brother Love, and smarks like me are going to twitch upon hearing it in his own obnoxious context.
I really hope that either Pritchard or the WWE themselves got a lock down on the moniker, so they could take legal action against Diddy, but it really is a toss-up. They’re shrewd enough to get legal rights to stuff like The Dudley Boyz to where the actual Dudleys themselves can’t even use the name that put them on the map outside of the WWE. But at the same time, a concept much less the words Brother and Love are kind of broad, and debatable on whether or not it’s even possible to legally lock up.
But I could really hope that they do, and within days, we’ll hear a follow up story about how Diddy will be legally forced to stop using the name Brother Love, and furthermore actually be obligated to pay out a settlement to the WWE to avoid getting taken to court over copyright infringement.
Much like Jay-Z jobbing to DDP over the use of the Diamond Cutter hand gesture, it would be a pretty fucking epic conclusion to see Puff Daddy jobbing to of all wrestling personalities in the industry, Brother Love.
