You may have noticed that the main event on Raw brand WWE live events at the moment is Roman Reigns defending his WWE United States Championship against WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens. Reigns is winning clean in the middle every night, retaining his title while getting decisive wins over the WWE Universal Champion. To some, beating the world champion clean every night doesn’t sound like a great idea, so a number of fans have been curious as to WWE’s reasoning for this move.
On this past weekend’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio for F4WOnline.com subscribers, Dave Meltzer laid out exactly what’s going on. Essentially, WWE wanted Owens-Reigns to be the main Raw house show program, and rightfully so, as it hasn’t been overdone on television and pay-per-view yet. The problem, though, is that WWE prefers to have the babyface win on house shows, as they are about a night of family fun that doesn’t really count in WWE television continuity. So as not to disqualification or count-out non-finishes in every main event around the horn, the main events were made as U.S. Championship matches to protect the Universal Championship, if not the champion.
Haruka Eigen, a longtime cult favorite preliminary wrestler in Japan who most recently served as Executive Director of Pro Wrestling NOAH, has passed away at the age of 70. Longtime peer Shinya “The Great” Kojika was the first to break the news in a blog post on Monday. Eigen was an active, full-time pro wrestler from his debut in 1966 through his retirement in 2006, and given his schedule, has to be up there in terms of wrestlers with the most matches in the history of Japan.
Eigen is best known for his role in the “old man” comedy matches that permeated the undercard of All Japan Pro Wrestling starting in the mid-1980s before spreading to Pro Wrestling NOAH when he jumped to the new promotion in 2000. His trademark spot saw him doing ridiculously overdramatic spit takes to sell his opponents’ chops while draped over the ropes and facing the crowd. The spit would visibly travel several rows deep, and it was part of the fun of going to an AJPW or NOAH card to come prepared with a newspaper or an umbrella to protect yourself.
While best known for comedy, Eigen really was a good utility mid card wrestler who had solid matches when not focusing on his comedy shtick, usually against longtime rival Mitsuo Momota. He also holds the distinction of being one of Andre the Giant’s opponents in Andre’s last match, as Andre, Giant Baba, and Rusher Kimura defeated Eigen, Masa Fuchi, and Motoshi Okuma on December 4, 1992. Eigen also had the honor of being on the opposing team for the retirement match of The Intelligent, Sensational Destroyer (Dick Beyer), when Destroyer, son Kurt Beyer, and Baba defeated Eigen, Fuchi, and Masao Inoue.
One of New York’s biggest wrestling institutions is moving from the location it’s been in for decades. Deadspin reports that Gleason’s, the legendary boxing gym that serves as home to WWE Hall of Famer Johnny Rodz’ wrestling school, is leaving the location it’s had in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn for over 30 years. As noted in the article, DUMBO has completely transformed in the decades since Gleason’s moved there, as what used to be one of many warehouse-like buildings is now in the middle of a bunch of storefronts in a trendy neighborhood.
The new location is just around the corner, so life goes on for the most part. But for all of the wrestlers trained at Rodz’s school, like Tommy Dreamer, Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley, Mat Striker, Big Cass, and Marti Belle, the strangely lovable sweatbox that they learned the ropes in will not be a place they can visit anymore. Hopefully Rodz’s office, which is akin to a miniature wrestling museum, will stay largely the same.
This morning, the BBC Archive YouTube page posted a segment (or at least an excerpt thereof; it appears to be cut off) on the national expansion of the WWF from a 1985 episode of BBC Newsnight. Vince McMahon is the focus, and the feature has a rare glimpse of his old office in the WWF’s pre-Titan Tower office building. In the above clip, McMahon primarily addresses the differences between “being in the sports entertainment business” and “being in the wrestling business” as well as defending the WWF as wholesome family entertainment. NBC’s Dick Ebersol joins him in the latter, trying to stave off a legislative attack from New York State Senator Abe Bernstein, who was attempting to ban pro wrestling in the state.
Bernstein’s Senate Task Force on Professional Wrestling didn’t end up going anywhere, but the hearings got a fair bit of mainstream coverage, including in the New York Times. Irv Muchnick was in attendance and provided additional coverage in a subsequent letter to the paper, as well, noting that Bernstein spent much of the time trying to prove that pro wrestling is worked.
Remember how when American Express sued TNA for not paying their bill to the tune of $269,049.50, the summons was served to a receptionist at TNA’s old office that they were evicted from months earlier? Well, that’s about to become an issue for TNA: This coming Wednesday, American Express will be in court arguing that they are entitled to a default judgment because TNA has not acknowledged the complaint. A default judgment is exactly what it sounds like, TNA losing by default. TNA has not filed anything in the case since it was fire filed back in July, and thus are currently listed on the court docket as having no legal representation recorded by the court.
As we have previously reported, it does not appear that TNA ever filed a change of address with the United States Postal Service after being evicted from their longtime offices at Cummins Station in Nashville, Tennessee (which is still listed as the company’s mail order address on ShopTNA.com). They do have an “authorized agent” (a third party proxy) in Chattanooga that can be served instead, but that option is not mentioned in American Express’s latest court filings, and neither is the TNA merchandise warehouse, where it’s been reported the company is now headquartered. In fairness, American Express has now repeatedly served the lawsuit and related documents to the address on file, which TNA never changed while becoming delinquent on their account.
For what it’s worth, as of a change on October 27th, the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website now lists Impact Ventures, LLC, TNA’s parent company, as being headquartered at 1404 51st Ave North in Nashville. According to Google Maps, that’s this red and white building building in what looks like an office park (zoom in up the driveway to get a better look):
The gist of American Express’s request for a default judgment is that the deadline to respond has expired, that TNA did not move for an extension, and that TNA had not yet responded by November 2nd, when the motion was written. So as a result, they think they should get their $269,049.50 and whatever else “the Court deems just and proper.”
In addition, one of the exhibits filed by American Express is TNA’s billing statement from May, the month that the account was cancelled. The new charges consisted entirely of late fees:
$577.88 for being late in paying off a $19,327.08 balance on one of TNA CFO Dean Broadhead’s two corporate cards.
$7,233.15 for being late in paying off a $241,911.39 balance on the corporate card of Shane Emerson, who serves as TNA’s Director of International Content Distribution and Live Events.
On top of that:
Because of the cancellation, a pro-rated portion of the annual membership fee was credited back on every card.
TNA had 11 cards distributed to nine employees, with Broadhead, Emerson, and Dixie Carter each having two. Of the nine who had cards, two are now gone from the company: Eric Barnes, who handled media relations, and Tyson Ciesiensky, TNA’s Director of Information Technology. Ciesiensky is now Chief Information Officer of Skyway Studios, where TNA does post-production. The others with corporate cards were Serg Salinas (Dixie’s husband), John Gaburick (creative/talent relations), and Bob Ryder (travel).
I have reached out to TNA for comment on if they will have legal representation present at the hearing. In the event that they respond, we will update this space and let you know what they say.
Audie Attar, Conor McGregor’s agent, is doing is best to keep his client’s name in the news while the UFC’s first simultaneous double champion takes a six month from fighting to spend time with his pregnant girlfriend. On Tuesday’s edition of ESPN’s 5ive Rounds podcast, he was very positive about the idea of McGregor doing appearances of some kind for WWE.
“I think it’s all about business, man,” he said. “If [WWE] is going to come with an offer, we are willing to entertain it. We are here. Have their people call his people — which is me. We can have a conversation.” Last week, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE’s Vice President, Talent and Live Events, told the Daily Telegraph that “[McGregor] could come over, he’s got it all, man. He’s got the personality, the skills, the talk. He’s an entertainer, for sure.” Triple H noted how well Floyd Mayweather did in his one WWE match against Big Show at WrestleMania 24 and how McGregor had similar prospects.
“I think it’s phenomenal that a guy like Triple H was at the fights,” Attar added. “I heard he said some positive things, which is always good to hear.” They have not talked yet, though. As for McGregor’s trolling of WWE talent on Twitter a few months back, Attar said that “It’s ultimately like, look — I think Conor had his say via social media at times, but he also is someone that appreciates people that sacrifice and train and are dedicated to their craft, whatever it may be.” When asked if McGregor would do a match, Attar said “Again, I think ultimately Conor will say, ‘Let me talk to my friend Benjamin [Franklin] to see how many of his friends he’s bringing with him before we talk about what the obligations are.”
This is notable in the sense that some of the NXT talent, like new tag team champions Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa, had already gone home after Saturday’s NXT TakeOver: Toronto special. This could mean anything or nothing, but the most likely explanation is that she stayed with the crew to tape a match and/or angle at the NXT taping being held in conjunction with the live SmackDown tonight (Tuesday). NXT is a bit short on shows until the next tapings back in Florida at Full Sail Live, which necessitated adding a taping as part of tonight’s SmackDown taping.
Posted November 22nd, 2016 in News, NXT, WWE. Tagged: Asuka.
ESPN’s upcoming “30 For 30” documentary about Ric Flair just got a little more intriguing. In Tuesday’s edition of Sports Illustrated media reporter Richard Deitsch’s column, he previewed the upcoming special, which will be one of two (along with an XFL documentary) where WWE is cooperating with the production. The big news in the piece has little to do with Flair himself, though, as Deitsch quotes director Rory Karpf as saying that “It was also awesome to get an interview with The Undertaker (real name: Mark Calaway) out of character.”
In the past, WWE refrained from showing The Undertaker out of character in their own documentaries or allowing third party documentaries from doing so, either. When “Wrestling with Shadows” and “Beyond The Mat” were shot backstage, for example, both productions were contractually prohibited from showing him. This impacted “Wrestling with Shadows” in particular, as director Paul Jay had caught Undertaker/Calaway furiously banging on Vince McMahon’s office door after the “Montreal screw job” in the Survivor Series ’97 main event.
The main exceptions to this policy came when The Undertaker had dropped the “Deadman” gimmick from 2000-2003 and focused on the “American Badass” persona. During that period, he also did an out of character interview (embedded at the top of this article) in a 2002 episode of TSN’s “Off the Record,” which regularly featured pro wrestlers going back to 1997.
As noted earlier, it appears that James Ellsworth has signed a WWE contract, as he announced on Facebook that he is not taking any additional indie bookings after he works a Big Time Wrestling show this Friday night. It has not yet been reported one way or the other if The headbangers and/or The Spirit Squad (Ken “Kenny” Doane and Mike “Mikey” Mondo) have been signed as of yet.
As for Dawson and partner Dash Wilder, their role depends on whether or not WWE actually sees them as “developmental talent,” so to speak. The Revival is a signature act on NXT these days, and if you look at the other top level NXT stars, barely any of them are “developmental” signees, strictly speaking. The cards lately are dominated by names like Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, DIY, Asuka, and others who were brought in to boost the brand and/or teach younger wrestlers, not get developed for the main roster.
WWE co-owner and former CEO Linda McMahon has been in the news for a few days, with variousreports in Connecticut media suggesting that she was the front-runner for a cabinet appointment as President Elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. McMahon had been one of the larger donors to the Trump campaign via a super PAC (in addition to WWE and the McMahons being the largest donors to his Trump Foundation), so this didn’t come completely out of nowhere. A new report that surfaced Tuesday, however, suggests that she’s out of the running.
According to Politico, 78 year old billionaire investor Wilbur Ross is the new “leading candidate,” with billionaire Carl Icahn seemingly confirming the news in a pair of tweets:
1/2 Spoke to @realDonaldTrump. Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are being considered for Treasury and Commerce. Both would be great choices.
McMahon spent a large portion of her personal fortune on unsuccessful bids for open United States Senate seats in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012. Various issues surrounding WWE came up in the campaigns, both related to content and wrestler treatment, including Chris Benoit’s father appearing before the local media.
On Monday, in response to Joey Styles’ open letter about his firing from Evolve, FloSports Managing Editor Jeremy Botter (who was at the show both covering it for FloSlam and as the Flo representative) disputed Styles’ version of what happened with a series of tweets:
Styles had gotten in hot water for making a reference to the Donald Trump “hot mic” video after being directly told not to make any political references on commentary. His firing was quickly announced on Twitter, and Flo having to edit out his remarks delayed the release of the on demand version of Saturday’s Evolve show.
While Evolve’s Gabe Sapolsky initially tweeted that he wouldn’t be commenting further on the firing of Joey Styles as the promotion’s play by play announcer for making a crass reference to the Donald Trump “hot mic” recording, he followed up further late Sunday morning:
The show, hailing live from La Boom in the Woodside section of Queens, New York, was Evolve’s first as the flagship promotion on FloSlam, FloSports’ pro wrestling streaming service. The FloSlam Twitter account, currently operated by FloSports Managing Editor Jeremy Botter, tweeted support for Sapolsky’s decision, later adding that the show is being edited before it’s uploaded for on-demand viewing. As of Sunday morning, @FloSlam is tweeting that not just the required editing, but also slow hotel Wi-Fi in New York is delaying the availability of the on-demand version of the show.
Evolve has another show scheduled tonight in Joppa, Maryland.
This may just be to take in the show, but Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE Vice President of Talent and Live Events, has shown up in the crowd at UFC 205:
Of course, he lives in the New York area and has performed in Madison Square Garden on numerous occasions, so it makes sense for him to be at the event that drew the biggest gate in the arena’s history.
Tonight was supposed to be a big night for Evolve with their first show on FloSlam’s streaming service. The show ended up getting a lot of attention on social media, but not for the reasons you would expect. During the show, announcer Joey Styles was doing a segment with ring announcer Joanna Rose when he said this:
Joanna you look great, if our next President were here he’d want to grab you by the —
After a lot of complaints to Evolve booker/talent relations head Gabe Sapolsky, Styles was dealt with swiftly:
On Wednesday, WWE filed a 335 page amended complaint in Laurinaitis v. World Wrestling Entertainment, the lawsuit backed by lawyer Konstantine Kyros that alleges not just claims over brain injuries, but also misclassification as independent contractors and WWE being a racketeering scheme. Most notably, there are several new plaintiffs who have joined the lawsuit, and The Boston Globe ran a feature on some of the new accusations on Saturday afternoon. The new plaintiffs are Ashley Massaro, Perry Satullo (Perry Saturn), David Silva (Sylvano Sousa), Johnny Jeter, Charles Scaggs (2 Cold Scorpio/Flash Funk), Chad Wicks, the estate of John Rechner (Balls Mahoney).
The most attention-grabbing allegations, which headlined the Globe article, came from Massaro, Besides the various allegations related to in-ring injuries, including that she was completely untrained when she had her first WWE match, Massaro alleges that “she was sexually assaulted on a military base in Kuwait” during a “WWE Middle East tour.” According to Massaro, when she got back to the United States, “she was seen by [WWE’s] Dr. [Ferdinand] Rios who interviewed her about the incident.” She says that after the doctor “reported the incident to WWE executives,” they met with her to “apologize for their negligence but persuaded her that it would be best not to report it to appropriate authorities.”
The complaint has no further details about the sexual assault allegation, like if Massaro was accusing a co-worker or a member of the military. WWE not being called out by Kyros for a cover-up does suggest the latter, though. It looks like Massaro is referring to a June 2006 tour where she was joined by Maria Kanellis, Jimmy Hart, and Ron Simmons. When the Globe asked WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt for comment on Massaro’s allegations, he did not refer to them directly, instead directing them to Judge Vanessa Bryant’s comments in dismissing Kyros’ wrongful death lawsuits against WWE a few days ago.
Mark “Henry Godwin” Canterbury’s section of the complaint has been rewritten to explain the context of the release he signed in June, which part of the procedure for him being admitted into drug rehabilitation on WWE’s dime. From the complaint: “The document disavows any duty to Canterbury, seeks to make Canterbury’s entry into Rehab contingent on him not being able to cite the WWE’s rehab payment in any legal proceedings, and seeks to release the WWE from any personal injury claims.” It had been suspected that some wrestlers who WWE had sent to rehab had signed such agreements, but this is the first time it’s been confirmed publicly. Canterbury “states he believed it was paperwork for the facility.”
Kyros is now attempting to tie work for WCW and ECW into the allegations, arguing that WWE is their legal successor. Technically speaking, WWE only bought WCW’s assets (the company continued existing under a new name to fulfill legal obligations) and ECW’s intellectual property. In an email, he explained the legal strategy by saying that the legal concept of “successor liability” is “used to prevent companies from transferring only assets and not liabilities” and it’s “widely used in asbestos litigation for occupational diseases that developed many years later from acquired companies.”
WWE will likely address the new allegations in some form when they move to dismiss the lawsuit.
While he has not given all of the details yet, Billy Corgan just announced on Friday shortly after noon eastern time that he and TNA have settled his lawsuit against them:
While not outright said, the first tweet strongly implies that whatever the arrangement ended up being, it does not include a confidentiality agreement. It will be very interesting to see what he says next week about how this came about, as the big impasse had been that TNA financiers at Anthem Sports and Entertainment wanted Corgan to drop the lawsuit to get his loan paid back. They also didn’t want to pay him the $900,000 fee he was supposed to get get if TNA was sold. TNA has not yet been sold. Once the settlement is official, they will be free to sell the company to Anthem.
As we reported exclusively earlier in the week, Anthem is finalizing a new round of funding that allowed them to provide a credit facility to TNA and presumably will help them purchase the company soon. Corgan show particular interest in that story when we broke it:
WWE got a major win in court late on Thursday, as as Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut dismissed both wrongful death lawsuits outstanding against the company. The lawsuits had been filed by Konstantine Kyros, the same attorney behind the other concussion-themed cases against WWE, on behalf of Cassandra Frazier, the widow of Nelson “Mabel/Viscera/Big Daddy V” Frazier Jr. and Michelle James, who Matt “Matt Borne/original Doink” Osborne had a child with.
Neither wrestler’s brain had been preserved for an examination to determine if they had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and neither death had any kind of head or brain trauma listed as a contributing cause on their death certificates. Frazier died of a heart attack (although no autopsy was performed) and Osborne succumbed to a drug overdose. Frazier was very overweight, as he had been for his whole career, while Borne had well-known issues with drug addiction going back to early in his career.
Curiously, the Frazier complaint was the only one of Kyros’ numerous brain injury lawsuits against WWE not to mention that CTE can only be diagnosed postmortem. Since Frazier was cremated with no autopsy conducted, it literally can’t ever be proven one way or another if he had CTE. This was one of a few things where Bryant appeared to take issue with the plaintiffs’ tactics. Other such notes include:
“The Court notes, in particular, the facially specious assertions by Plaintiffs’ counsel that, ‘upon information and belief,’ both Frazier and Osborne ‘had CTE.’ The complaints contain no information from which such a belief could be derived.”
“It is impossible to plausibly allege, much less prove that either wrestler had CTE. Kyros and his co-counsels’ assertion that either wrestler had the condition ‘upon information and belief’ must therefore be knowingly false.”
“[C]ounsel’s allegation that Frazier’s ‘inability to survive the heart attack’ can be ‘more likely than not attributed’ to his CTE is yet another bald and baseless allegation, unprovable and unsupportable, which the Court deems unworthy of the barest measure of credibility.”
In the end, the James/Osborne case was officially dismissed because James lacked standing as not being the executor of Osborne’s estate. As for Frazier, that case was dismissed because the plaintiffs did not argue “specific facts” supporting the allegations that his death stemmed from in-ring injuries or any kind of potential fraudulent conduct on WWE’s part.
WWE had also moved to have Kyros sanctioned for violating Rule 11, which requires that attorneys have some kind of evidence supporting their allegations before filing suit.While the court denied the motion, Bryant did acknowledge “Kyros’ habit of deceptive and inflammatory rhetoric,” use of “deliberately misleading language,” “vexatious and transparent attempt to circumvent two prior decisions by district courts”
Yesterday, we broke the news that on Monday, as part of a “town hall” meeting among staff at TNA investor/financier Anthem Sports and Entertainment, CEO Leonard Asper had some advice for employees. That advice was to be careful what they tell some co-workers about business matters, because those who work for the company’s news arm might be obligated to report it. Today, we can confirm another item from the meeting: Asper said that Anthem was receiving a new investment imminently, and it was a factor in their current expansion, which includes funding TNA.
In his speech to staff, Asper explained that he was fine with the news of the investor going public, but couldn’t share their identity as of yet. It will take “about…probably 20 to 30 days” before there’s an official announcement, because they need to “finalize the paperwork and all of that.” Putting money into TNA was named as one of their “expansionary moves,” as was Anthem’s acquisition of of GameTV. That deal was announced in August, the same month that Anthem started putting money into TNA.
Asper also explained the reasoning behind the TNA deal in very broad strokes. “I wanna sort of talk about TNA a little bit, because it really comes back to content,” he began. “And what we’re finding with the distribution as some of you know, is it’s harder and harder to get distribution, it’s harder to get a DirecTV, or even on the web, to get people to view you if you’re just licensing somebody else’s content or doing your own. And just pure talking heads.” The last reference presumably refers to The Fight Network’s original programming being heavy on news and analysis shows shot on their news desk set.
“So what we’re trying to do more of is acquire content, or at least get closer to it, develop relationships with the people who do own the content,” Asper said, “because if we don’t, they’re gonna go direct to the consumer around us.” He also told the staff that “you’ll probably see more of” TNA-esque deals to get content for their platforms.
Posted November 9th, 2016 in News. Tagged: Anthem.
We have been able confirm that yesterday (Monday, November 7th), Anthem Sports and Entertainment CEO Leonard Asper held a “town hall” meeting in the company offices where a couple items related to TNA came up. One of them relates to a warning he gave employees to close the meeting: That they need to remember that there are journalists who work for the company and cover beats that would include the company, so be careful talking to them about internal business matters. Anthem is, as previously noted here, the parent company of The Fight Network, which covers professional wrestling.
“We’ve got a lot of journalists in this organization, we’ve got and a lot of stuff going on that we don’t want public,” Asper explained. He said that the issue of who can tell who what has “come up over the TNA issue” because “there’s a lot of stuff we’re not saying, and some of you might know stuff.” He then made it clear that anyone with knowledge of information that shouldn’t go public, “you’ve got to remember that you’re talking to someone who is a journalist. They’ve got a responsibility. They’ve got an independence, and we want to protect that.”
In other words, he told staff to be “a little careful” when talking to co-workers who are journalists. “If you’re talking to somebody who’s in that role, don’t compromise them. Either say it’s off the record, and ask if they’re OK with receiving information off the record, or just don’t burden them with secrets that, from a moral perspective, from an ethics perspective, that they have to reveal.” Asper also added that “people are starting to watch us more” because of the new deals like TNA, making the advice more important.
Analysis: This was basically a crash course for employees not familiar with dealing with the media. Being a relatively under the radar company means that there probably would be a lot of employees who fit that bill until the wrestling media started scrutinizing their employers a few weeks ago. Still, Fight Network’s news operation primarily covers MMA, so it’s interesting to see Asper single out TNA as the catalyst for his lesson.
Posted November 8th, 2016 in News, TNA. Tagged: Anthem.
Last Thursday, November 3rd, both Impact Ventures (TNA’s parent company) and chief financial officer Dean Broadhead both filed responses to Audience of One Productions’ lawsuit for non-payment of money owed for work on Bound For Gloru 2015. Here are the key defenses:
It’s claimed that “The Complaint fails to state a cause of action against TNA upon which relief can be granted.” Wasn’t Audience of One asking to be paid in full?
TNA asserts that “the Complaint must be dismissed to the extent Plaintiff has failed to mitigate its alleged damages.” The implication is seemingly that Audience of One didn’t try to collect, similar to the claim that Billy Corgan did not ask for re-payment of his loan.
As far as direct responses to the text of the complaint go:
“TNA admits that Plaintiff sent a final invoice in the amount of $288,930.04. TNA denies that it owes Plaintiff that money.” That’s pretty definitive on their part.
“TNA denies that Broadhead made any false representations or that he intended to mislead Plaintiff,” and “TNA denies that [Ron] Harris misrepresented any facts or information to Plaintiff. TNA admits that it is in continual discussions with various parties concerning upcoming shows.” This refers to Audience of One’s claim that Broadhead assured them a long-term relationship while making a deal with Aroluxe Media to take over their duties.
“TNA admits that it sent the 3.18.16 payment via FedEx, and that an accurate copy of the payment is attached [to the complaint] as Exhibit 2.” This payment was made just a few days after the company debt with Aroluxe was registered with the states of Tennessee and Delaware.
It looks like TNA isn’t making a deal to settle this case any time soon.
On Monday, I examined how Hulk Hogan returning to WWE for a WrestleMania appearance may not be as cut and dry as WWE welcoming him back once his lawsuits against Gawker are officially settled. The sex tape leak itself had never really damaged Hogan; the publication of his racist comments in July 2015 was what made him a pariah. In May, he filed a lawsuit against everyone who he believed was involved with blackmailing him with the recording of his comments and later leaking the transcript to the National Enquirer, including Gawker. In light of settling both cases with Gawker, the big question becomes whether or not Hogan wants to keep the second case going against the other defendants, since that would keep the story of the racist comments alive in the media.
Early Tuesday afternoon, we got the answer, as David Houston, Hogan’s personal attorney, confirmed via email that “Gawker will be settled in both cases[,] not the other unrelated defendants in case two.” “Case two” is the aforementioned lawsuit over the extortion and leaking allegations. The remaining defendants include those named by FBI & Tampa Police as being involved the alleged blackmail scheme along with various associates in the radio community who he believes were also involved with the Enquirer leak. Thanks to Gawker’s bankruptcy, the lawsuit had been on hold since about a month after it was filed.
Analysis: This really feels like a miscalculation on Hogan’s part. With the Gawker settlement, the story about the racist remarks was going to fade away to a mainstream media who largely conflated the two cases. Now? He’s keeping it alive and literally in the public record. While it’s understandable that he would want to go after his alleged blackmailers, as he wanted them prosecuted and they weren’t (for reasons that have not been made public), it’s a potentially disastrous calculation from a public relations point of view.
With this in mind, does WWE continue easing him back to the company, or do they avoid going further than recording WWE Network documentary talking heads with him, like they have done recently? The safer route is the latter, or maybe even outright cutting ties again.
Justin Roberts announced on Monday evening that he’s writing “Best Seat in the House,” a book about his WWE career.
“If you ever wondered what it’s like to be a giant wrestling fan and work at WWE under Vince McMahon and travel the world with co-workers who have been the stars of pro wrestling from the 90s through today, this is the book for you,” Roberts writes.
He describes the book as being about his journey that got him to his dream job as WWE ring announcer. Having said that he has no hopes of returning to WWE, the Instagram blurb says that the book will be “very honest in sharing his story.”
No timetable for release was given in the post. Check out the official announcement below:
As soon as it was announced that Hulk Hogan had come to terms on a $31 million settlement of his lawsuit against Gawker, wrestling fans immediately began speculating about his return to WWE. Fueling the fire, Brooke Hogan told TMZ that her dad is already in negotiations to return at WrestleMania 33, while on last week’s Bauer and Pollock podcast, Court Bauer reported that Hogan has recently been taping talking head segments for WWE Network programming. The idea of the latter is that whenever they air, it’s under the radar enough that WWE can ease into bringing Hogan back, plus viewers don’t really know when those clips are filmed, anyway.
Having said all that, it’s not as if settling the sex tape lawsuit is/was the only hurdle for Hogan’s return. After all, it was, in and of itself, never the issue. The Gawker post didn’t hurt his career; last year’s National Enquirer article revealing his racist comments on a different sex tape (I subsequently located the audio for some of it in April) did. While they’re connected and the lawsuit being settled does chip away at the legs of the racist comments story, the settlement (if approved by the bankruptcy and trial judges) may not be the end for a few reasons.
The biggest is that Hogan still has a lawsuit outstanding that’s centered on the original leak of the racist comments. Filed in May in the same court as the Gawker lawsuit, it named not just the now-bankrupt blog empire (which Hogan alleged was the Enquirer’s source despite no compelling evidence), but also everyone who he believes was involved with the original sex tape leak to Gawker as well as a subsequent extortion attempt using all of the videos as bait. If that lawsuit keeps going, it’s going to keep the topic of his racist comments in the public eye for as long as the case lasts.
So is it gonna keep going?
That’s hard to say right now. Obviously the claim against Gawker, which was tenuous in the first place, is being dropped soon. When reached for comment, Gawker attorney Rachel Fugate said she had “no clue” if Hogan would be dropping the case against the other defendants. Charles Harder, Hogan’s lead attorney on the Gawker cases, did not return a request for comment. So it likely comes down to this: Did Hogan file the second lawsuit as part of the deal with Peter Thiel to drive Gawker out of business (with the others as collateral damage, albeit people who Hogan had no problem suing), or would he have pursued this case regardless?
While it ramped up after he started needing money in the aftermath of his son’s car wreck and his first wife filing for divorce, Hogan has been a very litigious man for going on two decades now. Ever since he filed an extortion lawsuit against the woman he sued him alleging that he sexually assaulted her the weekend before the first episode of Monday Nitro, he’s been relented. Last year, Amanda Hess wrote this in an article about the sex tape case at Slate:
Hogan is easily aggrieved. When a woman accused him of sexual battery, he sued her; when his ex-wife Linda alleged domestic abuse in her memoir, he sued her; when a series of back surgeries stopped Hogan from inking a last-hurrah wrestling contract, he sued the surgeon; when his auto insurance failed to cover the cost of his tipsy teenage son recklessly driving his sports car into a tree, causing permanent brain damage to a passenger, Hogan sued his insurance company; when that didn’t work, he sued Linda, too, for not forcing him to be better insured; when Hogan’s lawyers sent the bill for their services, he sued them as well.
That’s definitely missing plenty of cases, too. So it’s easy to make an argument for why he would continue to pursue the second lawsuit, but it’s just as easy to argue that it was primarily part of the plan to sink Gawker. The only mark against the latter is that if Hogan’s lawyers foresaw Gawker filing bankruptcy a month after they filed the suit (and it’s starting to look more and more like they did), then the second lawsuit was unlikely to push them further in that direction.
Until they know for sure whether or not this case is going away, though, it’s likely too risky for WWE to bring Hogan back as a an actual character, and not just a talking head on canned streaming shows. If the case is still going, then Hogan’s racist comments will literally be an ongoing issue in the public record until the case is resolved.
Powerbomb TV, the upcoming fully independent streaming service, made some big announcements on Saturday when they tweeted about their first content partners:
As we said, Lucha Libre will be a big part of https://t.co/mfZ70gKUdN. We're proud to announce that we've partnered with RIOT Lucha Libre…
Analysis: This definitely differentiates Powerbomb TV from WWE Network, Flo Slam, and Highspots Wrestling Network right out of the gate. With both Flo and Highspots carrying some of the bigger name indies plus WWE likely eyeing a lot of the same groups as Flo, this immediately gives Powerbomb a unique hook.
Plus, in the event that one of the bigger players were to pick up shows from one of the top lucha libre promotions like CMLL, AAA, or Elite, then fans who got into the Mexican scene through those services could see more from the same wrestlers on Powerbomb TV. In Mexico, independent shows are flush with name talent booked from the major offices, and there are no restrictions on who can appear on video like with American indie shows.
If you’re a fan of WWE’s curated “Collections” of themed matches and angles, then we have some good news for you. As reported on Saturday by Steve Coulson of WWE Network News, Monday (November 7th) will see the release of two new additions to the Collections bucket: Austin vs. McMahon Part II and Randy Savage: Cream of the Crop. Here are the official descriptions for each collection:
Austin vs. McMahon Part II:
One of the greatest rivalries of all time rages on as the next chapter in the saga between the tyrannical Mr. McMahon and the defiant Stone Cold Steve Austin unfolds. Beginning with WrestleMania XV, follow The Rattlesnake and The Boss throughout their journey of ups and downs, Black Weddings, Greater Powers, celebrations, farewells, and more, culminating with the stunning fallout from WrestleMania X-Seven. Relive these unforgettable matches and moments in this exclusive WWE Network Collection!
Randy Savage: Cream of the Crop:
Get ready to freak out and let the madness begin with this WWE Network Collection celebrating the storied career of Macho Man Randy Savage. From unforgettable moments and interviews, to both rare and classic battles against Macho Man”s greatest rivals, there is only one place to find these eclectic moments from the Hall of Famer”s legendary run in sports entertainment!