WCW Buyout Question...
 

When WWE bought WCW, did they get the rights to the names of those they didn't sign? And what about those who stayed out their contracts with Time Warner?

I believe that they got all trademarks and copyrights that WCW owned at the time. So the question becomes what all did WCW own at the time of the buyout?

A lot of WCW wrestlers had their names before they went to work for them so they probably don't have a lot of copyright issues. Also WWE were the ones who were nuts about copyrights. WCW would have taken every single WWE guy under their WWE name if they could. WWE usually wouldn't want any WCW guy with their WCW name (The Giant, Vinnie Vegas, etc) unless it was already a long standing name gimmick name e.g. Chris Jericho, Diamond Dallas Page, etc

Vinnie Vegas was more like Undertakers case in the sense that they were trying to make new stars with crazy gimicks in the 90's and he was a trucker who wrestled and gave the jack-knife power bomb, just like the Dimond Stud became scarface, chico.....