It doesn't take an inveterate nature lover or a died-in-the-wool professional wrestling fan to tell the difference between an endangered panda and The Rock. 

The panda, an endangered species residing in China and a handful of zoos, is cute, cuddly and entirely non-threatening -- unless you happen to be a stalk of bamboo. 

The Rock, aka Duane Johnson, is a 6-5, 275-pound former World Wrestling Federation champion and former Miami Hurricane lineman, who is neither cute nor cuddly.  And once he enters the ring, his threat level pretty much approximates that of Godzilla marching on Tokyo.

So, it makes you wonder why the WWF -- formerly the World Wildlife Fund -- is demanding $90 million in damages from World Wrestling Entertainment, and seriously claiming its former initials of WWF confused the public into thinking it was affiliated with passive pandas rather than wrestlers on the warpath. 

Until last year, the only thing the WWF and World Wrestling Entertainment had in common were the initials WWF -- because World Wrestling Entertainment used to be called the World Wrestling Federation.

As the popularity of professional wrestling sky-rocketed upward in the United States and Europe, the officials at the U.S. affiliate of the wildlife fund began to worry:  What if animal lovers ran across the letters "WWF" on correspondence sent out by the wrestling federation? 

Might not their tender sensibilities be perplexed or, worse, horrified?  What if they mistakenly started sending their donations to the wrestling organization rather than the wildlife people? 

So in 1989 the wildlife fund extracted from the Federation a promise to no longer use the initials "WWF" in Times Roman font, the typeface often used in business letters.  That accommodation satisfied the U.S. branch of the wildlife fund, but not its parent organization based in Switzerland. 

In 1991, WWF International challenged the wrestling federation's application for a Canadian trademark that included the initials WWF.  Then it sued the Swiss-based European distributor of the wrestling federation's magazine over the same issue and began filing trademark challenges against the federation around the world.

In 1993, both sides met and eventually forged an agreement on the use of the WWF initials that was mutually acceptable.  WWF International dropped its lawsuits and agreed to let the wrestling federation have unrestricted use of "WWF" in the United States.

That agreement held until 1999, when WWF International sued again, this time in a British court, claiming the agreement barred the use of a new WWF wrestling logo introduced the year before.

The new wrestling logo featured the WWF initials in a way that looked liked they had been carved by a mad slasher -- in stark contrast to the environmentalist group's family-friendly logo that shows a panda above its WWF initials.

However, something more dramatic than the WWF wrestling logo had changed by that time.  The wrestling federation literally was rolling in money -- with net profits soaring from $3.2 million in 1996 to $58.9 million in 1999.   Its new wealth made it clearly ripe for a shakedown.

The wildlife fund's lawyers quickly returned to court with new demands that the wrestling federation stop using the WWF initials altogether. 

The presiding British judge agreed that the allegations were trivial, but nevertheless issued an injunction barring the federation from using its 1998 logo because of the remote possibility it might foster an "injurious association" with the environmental group. 

At that point, the World Wrestling Federation rather than have different initials and logos in use for the U.S. than for the rest of the world simply changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment and its logo to "WWE" so it could maintain a consistent global brand.

          In a less litigious world, that might have been the final curtain.  Well, not quite. Wildlife attorney Michael Rogers now has issued a new demand for yet another pound of the federation's flesh. 

Rogers calculates that the wrestling group's use of the "WWF" logo has cost the wildlife fund $360 million, but says he'll generously settle the claim for a mere $90 million.  World Wrestling Entertainment's firm, but polite response can be summed up in to two words, "No way."

          Roger's bizarre demand, unfortunately, is not an isolated one.  WWF International has taken the same approach with other companies, some of whom simply acquiesced to the pressure rather than fight like WWE. 

Most Americans associate the WWF's lovable panda with a benign "do-good" organization devoted to saving the world's endangered species rather than a group that reaps millions with tactics that border on outright extortion.

What many don’t know is that the World Wildlife Fund itself is a global conglomerate of organizations with headquarters in Switzerland that last year raked in some $332 million.  Much of that money was funneled to the international organization from American donations to the fund’s U.S. affiliate.