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What the viper doin? <\/figcaption>photo: Amer Hilabi (Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nFor any bystander looking at the worlds of professional wrestling and video games from the outside, what’s happening inside can look like a veritable circus. In 2022, each has had more than its fair share of ongoing legal litigation<\/span> and backstage drama<\/span>. Now, however, a new argument has seen the two worlds and all their tendency toward drama and upheaval collide, as WWE wrestler Randy Orton’s tattoo artist has successfully sued WWE 2K22 <\/em>publisher Take-Two Interactive for reproducing her tattoo art in-game without permission.<\/p>\nBack in 2018, tattoo artist Catherine Alexander filed a lawsuit against Take-Two<\/span> claiming the video game publisher used her tattoo designs on models of Randy Orton in its WWE 2K<\/em> games without permission. Those designs, which include tribal tattoos, skulls, a bible verse, and a dove and rose, are all featured on Randall Keith Orton’s viper-like frame.<\/p>\nAccording to her deposition, Alexander claimed WWE contacted her offering to share a $450 to use Orton’s faux-tattoo sleeve design for merchandise, which she turned down. according to Video Games Chronicle<\/em><\/span>Take-Two argued that its reproduction of Orton’s tattoos was fair use in order to recreate Orton in the WWE 2K<\/em> videogames. Turns out the jury at the US District Court Southern District of Illinois<\/span> didn’t buy that argument and ruled that Alexander was entitled to compensation. She will receive $3,750 in damages.<\/p>\n