WWE has been granted 90 more days to decide whether to oppose Spike Dudley’s application to trademark his ring name.
World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC filed its first request for an extension of time to oppose the “SPIKE DUDLEY” application, filed by Matthew Hyson, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted the extension on September 25, giving WWE until December 23 to file an opposition. WWE has not filed one.
Hyson filed the application on May 13, 2026. It covers action figures, not wrestling services. He applied to register the same name for wrestling services in November 2005, months after his WWE release; the USPTO refused it over WWE’s “Dudley Boyz” registration, which has been active since 2003, and Hyson abandoned that application in January 2007.
Hyson, 56, is retired from wrestling. He was with WWE from 2001 to 2005 as Spike Dudley, a name that began in ECW, whose assets WWE acquired in 2003 after ECW filed for bankruptcy in 2001. He has also worked under his real name, Matt Hyson, and as Brother Runt in TNA.
In WWE, he held the Cruiserweight Championship once, the European Championship once and the Hardcore Championship eight times, and won the WWF Tag Team Championship with Tazz.
Hyson told Chris Van Vliet on Insight in 2025 that he decided to step away after a 2010 match against Sabu for 2CW in Syracuse, New York, when his arm was cut and he ended up in the emergency room the next morning. His wife was pregnant with their first daughter at the time. He wrestled sporadically after that, with his last regular appearances in 2015 and a one-off match in December 2023.Â
“That was the moment where I realized, Okay, I’m going to be a father. I can’t be doing this crazy stuff anymore, because physically, that’s what I did, was take bumps,” Hyson said. “And no matter how indestructible we all think we are, you hit a wall where you cannot do that anymore.”
He now works in financial services. “I work for Fidelity Investments, and I’m on what’s called the Transition Services team,” he told Van Vliet.
Hyson made his most recent wrestling appearance in October 2025 at TNA Bound for Glory, where, as Brother Runt, he came to the ring before Team 3D’s “One Final Table” match against The Hardys and embraced Bully Ray and D-Von Dudley. In February, D-Von called on Triple H to induct Hyson into the WWE Hall of Fame.
