WWE reportedly releases ring announcer Greg Hamilton

[Chris]

Source: f4wonline.com

WWE has released ring announcer Greg Hamilton, according to a report.

PWInsider reports that WWE released Hamilton, real name Greg Hutson, earlier this week. Hamilton had been with the company since 2015 and had been a main roster ring announcer since 2016. He appeared on WWE programming as recently as last week, ring announcing for the Crown Jewel pay-per-view in Saudi Arabia and on SmackDown

This past weekend, Hamilton threatened to enlist "WWE lawyers" to sue Roc Nation rapper Westside Gunn for using a sample of his voice on a song.
In a series of since-deleted Instagram comments, Hamilton said that he was looking for a settlement of 20 to 30 thousand dollars for using his voice without permission.

"Well @westsidegunn @buffalokidsgallery let’s hope that since you STOLE my voice for your incoherent kindergarten fables, that you saved up enough delivering for Door Dash….because….You….are…. *****. You’ll be paying me for years….apologize and I’ll think about not collecting every dime for the rest of your life….or I can just get WWE lawyers….that’s ok too. Settle with my lawyer. And don’t EVER use my voice again….so wrong."

"Tick... tock.....the longer this goes, the longer I have in court....you ready to settle or do you wanna dance with WWE lawyers? It's a slam dunk. Price goes up by the day....," Hamilton wrote. "It was 20k, but at noon eastern it's $30k and we go to court."

Hamilton has removed the WWE from his Twitter handle and made his account private. WWE has yet to release a statement on the release or whether or not the social media posts played a role in it.


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We were just talking about this in the hip-hop thread over the weekend too

 

[Hidden Blaze]

Damn. One of the good ones

edit: wait I didn’t read it all and saw now where he was threatening a dude. Damn

 

[Deezy]

Don't involve your employers lawyers when you drunk tweeting.

Doubt that's the only reason.....I'm thinking there's something else.

 

[Kiffy Lube]

That sounded rather racist too. Good riddance.

 

[Deezy]

That drunk Bozo played himself

 

[Daddy Dom]

 

[Chris]

I wish his mom well regardless of the situation but it's a little hard to buy a "mutual respect departure" given the circumstances

 

[Kross Rhodes]

With how hardcore WWE is about its copyright you'd think they'd have backed up Hamilton on this, but I guess it's not worth the pr.

If Hamilton wants to stick in the industry there's no doubt he'll find a new place to ring announce for.

 

[Chris]

With how hardcore WWE is about its copyright you'd think they'd have backed up Hamilton on this, but I guess it's not worth the pr.

If Hamilton wants to stick in the industry there's no doubt he'll find a new place to ring announce for.

The thing is, dude could have asked WWE for permission and they gave it lol he has a ton of wrestling samples in his songs all the time and it's never been an issue. I'm not even sure if Greg Hamilton would have a say in his voice being used if it's sampled off WWE copyrighted programming and WWE gave the OK. But by his Instagram post, he doesn't seem to want to be in the business anymore either if we're to believe his tweets over the weekend were apparently just a coincidence lol

 

[Dale]

Can't be because of that, they mutually parted ways remember

 

[Kross Rhodes]

The thing is, dude could have asked WWE for permission and they gave it lol he has a ton of wrestling samples in his songs all the time and it's never been an issue. I'm not even sure if Greg Hamilton would have a say in his voice being used if it's sampled off WWE copyrighted programming and WWE gave the OK. But by his Instagram post, he doesn't seen to want to he in the business anymore either if we're to believe his tweets over the weekend were apparently just a coincidence lol

It’s entirely possible he had permission. I assumed if man’s was going off it was an unlicensed sample, but if that’s not the case, Greg is off his rocker for sure.

I’m not a huge fan of copyright claiming, anyway, so I don’t personally defend Greg either way. I just figured IF WWE didn’t give permission, they’d see his side of it.

All that aside, if he’s leaving the business because of a mutually agreed upon amicable split, good for him.

 

[Chris]

Yeah it just depends on what WWE's relatuonship with Gunn is but I can't imagine they'd fire Greg if dude really did illegally sample them, or maybe they would just bc his tweets were outlandish but then still go after Gunn for the copyright

 

[Dale]

Imagine they retweet dudes song after releasing Greg

 

[Hoss]

I would sort of doubt that WSG has cleared every clip he's ever sampled from something WWE owns. One reason being that he's sampled some things WWE might not approve of being used (such as bits of promos by Arn Anderson and Mick Foley that foreshadowed Benoit's actions for one example) and also the complicated nature of mixtapes vs. albums. Historically, rappers have used samples on mixtapes without clearing them because they're not commercial releases and I guess not made for profit? He sampled Greg on the song Undertaker vs. Goldberg on Hitler Wears Hermes 7, which is a mixtape as far as I’m aware, so it might not even need to be cleared by anyone, legally. Then again, mixtapes aren't what they used to be and many of them end up in Spotify, Apple Music and other paid streaming services so I really don't know for sure about any of that.

Anyways I'm pretty sure Greg just played himself by drunk tweeting and overestimating his stroke and now he's trying to save face.

 

[Chris]

Oh yeah i forgot about the whole mixtape vs album thing, gonna be a whole legal issue in the future for a lot of folk I'd imagine since they're streamable since i guess that's now a legal Grey area