John Legere — never a man to mince words — failed to deny that his company would be purchased by Sprint and corporate SoftBank this year, as has been recently rumored. In response to a question about the deal at T-Mobile's CES press conference today, Legere said, "I can tell you that the T-Mobile brand, attitude, and identity is here to stay."

That seems to suggest that a combined company would adopt T-Mobile's branding (and Legere's trademark tirades) rather than Sprint's, whose identity is arguably fading fast as T-Mobile goes full-bore on all fronts with Legere at the helm. "What we're doing, in any [acquisition] scenario, will prevail," Legere added.

Legere had earlier blasted Sprint as "a pile of spectrum waiting to be turned into a capability," which, if anything, sounds like evidence that an acquisition is being strongly considered — it's a suggestion that Legere's team could make good use of the spectrum that it thinks Sprint has failed to capitalize on. Sprint has recently launched its high-speed LTE-based Spark service, but T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray blasted it as being a commercial non-entity. "They don't want to sell it to you," he said, adding that it's a "shit storm."