Longtime WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt recently spoke to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and said that he is looking to retire. The 72-year-old has represented Vince McMahon and the WWE for about 35 years.
McDevitt with WWE began when he represented Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart in 1987. Neidhart had been arrested after a dispute with an airline attendant but McDevitt not only beat the charges but managed to successfully sue the airline on Neidhart’s behalf. Neidhart was awarded $200,000. From then on, McDevitt became the go-to attorney for WWE.
McDevitt has represented WWE in many high-profile legal cases, including Vince McMahon’s triumphant victory in the United States v. McMahon case over alleged steroid distribution (1994).
Jerry McDevitt: “I’m Headed Into Retirement”
McDevitt says he does have other clients, but considers WWE to be a ‘major’ client. Now into his 70’s, he’s looking to slow down. However, his long friendship with Vince McMahon has kept going.
“I’ll be 72 in January, so I’ve been trying to turn it down a little bit as I’m headed into retirement. But because of my longstanding relationship with WWE, I continue to represent them, although I keep telling Vince I do want to retire.”
McDevitt has always worked personally with Vince McMahon and he doesn’t expect that to change.
“My contact and my relationship is directly with and to Vince,” he said. “It always has been. It always will be. That’s kind of a unique relationship in the landscape of the law these days for the outside counsel to have that sort of direct relationship.”
WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt has responded to allegations that recently surfaced regarding the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia last year. A lawsuit launched on behalf of WWE stockholders stating the company misrepresented its dealing in Saudi Arabia now features a former WWE wrestler acting as a confidential witness.
The wrestler serving as a confidential witness made several statements regarding the infamous delayed flight out of Saudi Arabia from the Crown Jewel event last fall. Documents relating to the case confirm the wrestler in question ceased working for the company this April.
“A former WWE wrestler, who performed for the Company from 2012 to April 2020 and who participated in the October 31st, 2019 Crown Jewel event, confirms the substance of media reports,” reads documents relating to the suit.
“CW-2 explained that he asked the Senior Director of Talent Relations, Mark Carrano, about what was going on and that Carrano told him that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and McMahon had gotten into an argument over late payments in connection with the June 7, 2019 Super ShowDown event.”
WWE Responds to Allegations
WWE since has responded to these allegations.
“These false allegations were originally made in two suits filed by two different law firms,” reads a statement WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt sent to Forbes.
WWE’s statement confirms the company will attempt to have this lawsuit dismissed.
“After the Court appointed a third firm to be lead counsel, WWE provided all three law firms with specific detailed facts from the persons with actual knowledge of the situation, including the phony allegation about the plane. The first two law firms then dropped their lawsuits to avoid sanction motions, but the third firm chose to ignore the specific facts they had been provided, and instead cited an unnamed disgruntled former wrestler with no knowledge of the facts. WWE is preparing its response to the lawsuit and will be moving to have it dismissed.”
Dark Side of the Ring’s season finale tonight will focus on Owen Hart’s tragic death at the Over the Edge PPV in 1999. In the build-up to the episode airing, Martha Hart has been taking part in media interviews and speaking about the events surrounding her husband’s death.
Bret Hart has since responded to comments Martha Hart made to the Wrap regarding the fallout between his and Martha’s relationship. Martha stated that her fallout with Bret had to do with Bret wanting access to his wrestling footage and rekindling his relationship with Vince McMahon.
“(Bret) was very upset that he didn’t get his footage. It prompted him to befriend Vince again so he could have access to his footage. That was the first fracture in our relationship,” Martha said.
Bret has since released the following statement on the matter:
“While I am not interested in engaging in any more media mudslinging between Martha and myself especially in light of a global pandemic, I will say that our fallout is multifaceted. To say that it only involved being able to access and use my WWE footage and photos for future projects would merely be an oversimplification and inaccurate. I will not comment any further on the matter.”
WWE Lawyer Comments On Martha Hart Statements
In a recent interview with CBS Sports and on Talk is Jericho, Martha Hart spoke about the negligence involved in Owen’s fall. She also spoke about WWE taking legal action against her in an attempt to force the wrongful death suit to be filed in Connecticut where punitive damages would be less of a factor.
“It was really tough. I have to say it was a knock-down-drag-out fight/battle against them,” Martha said on Talk is Jericho. “A lot of people might not realize this but they actually sued me for breach of Owen’s contract.”
“They had in their contract that you could only sue them in Connecticut but I wasn’t suing them about Owen’s contract, it was something totally different. But through that process of the lawsuit, they were trying anything and everything to muddy the waters or just intimidate me.”
Jerry McDevitt Comments
WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt has since issued a response to CBS Sports.
“The reality is, we’ve never told our side of the story of what happened — at least not outside of court,” the statement McDevitt provided reads. “We told it in court, but when she talks about the way the lawsuit unfolded over the years, it really isn’t accurate what she’s saying.”
McDevitt then made accusation about Martha’s lawyers attempting to fix the judicial selection process to get a judge they favoured.
“What she did whenever this happened is, she hired a lawyer in Kansas City who we caught essentially trying to fix the judicial selection process to get a judge that was more to their liking. We caught them and went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court. The Missouri Supreme Court said, ‘No, no, no. We’re not going to let that happen.’ They essentially appointed an independent judge to come in from outside of Kansas City to oversee the proceedings. We were basically trying to find out what happened that night.”
McDevitt then stated that Owen Hart’s widow wanted to damage the wrestling business.
“Martha was not even remotely interested in finding out what happened that night; she just wanted to used it as a vehicle to beat up a business that she didn’t like that her husband was in, the wrestling business.”
McDevitt’s full statement along with Martha’s comments to CBS Sports can be read here.
Martha talking about WWE’s legal action against her can be heard in the player below:
The latest development in the ongoing battle between WWE and the various wrestlers suing them came today in the form of WWE filing a motion to dismiss the action filed by Marcus “Buff” Bagwell and Scott “Raven” Levy. This is the case dealing with WWE Network royalties, and there are two prongs to it:
That WWE has a legal obligation to pay both wrestlers royalties for WCW footage in general.
Levy’s 2000 WWF contract, because it allows for royalties from videos released in formats yet to be invented and did not specifically exempt royalties from internet and video on demand subscription fees the way current WWE contracts do.
WWE’s motion to dismiss deals with each in simple yet highly detailed fashion:
WWE does not fall under any of the legal criteria that would make it a successor company to WCW, if just because the legal entity formerly known as WCW still exists as the Universal Wrestling Corporation. Both plaintiffs’ WCW contracts also saw them forgo video royalties in exchange for other considerations.
The key language in the contracts is that royalties come from a “direct sale” of WWE home video products, with the references to technology not yet invented referring to formats like Blu-Ray. It didn’t exist at the time of the contract, but, like VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD, it’s a physical product that can be sold and re-sold. There’s also a detailed argument about how there’s legal precedent saying that a “sale” refers to a physical product, not a temporary license like a WWE Network subscription is. WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt also points out that a WWE contract’s royalty structure is pretty much impossible to apply to WWE Network.
No word yet as far as when a ruling should be expected.
Jerry McDevitt, the lead attorney for WWE, appeared on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast for a 70-minute interview about his life and career. From originally working for WWE in 1987 as part Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart’s case against US Airways through the steroid trials of the 1990s and all of the current day issues regarding concussions and WWE Network royalties, McDevitt addresses these topics in great detail. Highlights from the interview, which you can listen to here, are as follows.
The WWE Network royalties lawsuit being dismissed:
I think (Rene) Dupree was being manipulated by the same lawyer that has been running around bringing these CTE cases against the company and in fact we know he is. That whole business started with this guy advertising on the internet looking for people to sue the WWE and that he’s made various promises and representations to these people about what he thinks he is going to get for them and all the rest of that. After the judge in the CTE cases issued her subsequent rulings throwing out two of the cases and five-sixths of the other one while expressing skepticism about whether that claim would survive, shortly after that we believe he got Dupree to bring this royalties case as kind of a way to deflect attention from what was happening in the other cases and knowing full well that frankly Dupree’s case couldn’t go anywhere. As matters turned out (Dupree) evidently didn’t tell the lawyers he recruited to bring the case and to hide his own involvement that he had signed not one but two contracts that prohibited him from bringing such claims and as soon as the lawsuit was brought to my attention I sent an email the night they filed it to the lawyer in Chicago.
I brought this to the attention of the Chicago lawyer and said I assume you don’t know this because any lawyer who saw these documents wouldn’t bring this lawsuit but here is what your client signed. And as you can see it absolutely prohibits this lawsuit that you’ve brought and that I demand you withdraw it immediately. And he wrote back saying very professionally thank you and that I was not aware of this and that he’ll look into it. And I am sure he did and as the evidence shows, he then withdrew the lawsuit which was the only proper thing he could have done frankly. He could have not continued the lawsuit at all once. I brought that to his attention and Dupree would have known it too, and it was all designed I think to create some negative publicity for the company and see if they could maybe get somebody better then Dupree to bring such a lawsuit which is kind of “trolling” if you will for a plaintiff.
How does the dismissed case differ from the Doug Somers/Gilbert Family lawsuits:
I don’t think it does. They were trying to make it different by making contractual claims but these claims have never succeeded yet and I don’t think they ever will. Gilbert, Somers and there are a bunch of cases like Freddie Dryer and a bunch of guys that opted out of the NFL and if you remember the NFL had similar cases. They had a class action case brought against them from former NFL players on the NFL Network which the NFL as they seem to do, have a lot of money to throw around and they chose to settle with that class and pay them some money. But a couple guys, including Freddie Dryer, and the rest of about twelve others opted out of that class and brought their own lawsuit alleging that the NFL owed them more money then I guess was bigger than they would have got through the class action settlement (which was kind of a dumb move). Now you have to survive motions to dismiss that can be filled to dismiss such claims and the NFL did and they lost and the court threw their claims out.
Basically, the way the law works on this stuff is pretty simple. We are the owner of the copyrights of all of these things. The WWE is the sole and exclusive owner of the copyrights. Federal copyright law rewards the people who make the investments in creating these copyrighted works and go out and hire the talent and the stadiums and the cameras and all the expense of creating these films with exclusive rights of display, reproduction and sale. So when these people come in and say you are being unjustly and I’m not getting any of this money, the defense is always that the federal copyright law gives us the exclusive right to do it and preempts any of these state law claims that you are trying to assert that would burden our rights of ownership and they get thrown out every time.
Why he feels talent from defunct promotions have no claim to royalties from the WWE Network:
Let me use ECW as an example. ECW if you recall your history went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Whenever you go into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy what happens is your assets and your liabilities are marshalled. The bankruptcy trustee tries to sell the assets of the bankruptcy estate to generate some cash to pay off creditors who would be for example any ECW talent that are owed money from ECW and would share any money that is available which is usually not very much because when you are bankrupt you don’t get very much and when somebody goes bankrupt like ECW does it essentially wipes out all the claims of anybody that they would have against ECW for contract royalties or contract claims against ECW. The assets of the company are put up for sale free and clear of all liens and that is part of the whole bankruptcy sale. When you think about it nobody is going to buy assets that carry with it liabilities. So what you had there was this entire film library of ECW that would have been sitting somewhere in a cardboard box right now and not being displayed anywhere, and the WWE decided it would buy and pay money to buy the films and the copyrights that go with those films and obtain from the bankruptcy court a bill of sale giving the WWE in exchange for the money we paid for those the sole right, title and interest to the copyrights of those works. That is why the WWE has the legal right to display them on the Network free and clear of any claims, plain and simple.
Is Vince McMahon preserving the history of professional wrestling?
Yes and I think you can see it by his actions. He is a custodian of wrestling history right now and it’s been his whole life. It’s been the life of his family, it’s generational. I think he cares greatly about the history of this business and has great respect for the people who have been part of it and who have helped him build it.
How would he describe Vince McMahon?
I think he is a fascinating person. One of my favorite stories about Vince is when you first undertake to represent anybody as a lawyer you form judgments about the people you are representing and whether you get emotionally invested in them or whether you don’t. Are they honest? Are they truthful? In the early days when I was forming my relationship with him back in the early 90s and during the time the government was doing all this and it was a horrible time because all of the tabloid wars and all of these horrible and sensational stories telling these lurid and false tales about people up there; it was just miserable times. What I will always remember was one day when the headlines were just terrible and lurid and false and the kind of stuff that would make everyone angry, we were walking out of his office late at night one night and there was this fella, a janitor named Nick, who I learned later that he had a need for a dialysis machine in the building in order to keep his job which they did just to keep this janitor working.
When I came out of the office I saw him standing there mopping the floor and Vince came out of the office right after me and was walking down the hallway and Vince turned around after this hellish day and goes back and starts asking how’s his family, how are you doing and took the time to care about that little guy in the building that most people probably wouldn’t know his name. But he did and he cared about him and that was such an interesting scene. And I have never forgotten that about Vince. A part from that, part of him as a business man he is fascinating to watch and I think he is a great marketer of our era and what he has done with this business is just mind boggling when you watch WrestleMania and you see the production values and the people from all over the world that come to see it, it’s extraordinary. When you see the influence on television even beyond wrestling and you see how these politicians now use sort of the ring entrance mode to build drama for themselves in various ways and how the NFL has stolen, if you will some of the camera techniques that were used in the XFL, his influence on television and marketing is extraordinary.
Billy Jack Haynes being the “lead” wrestler to sue WWE as part of the ongoing concussion lawsuits:
Billy Jack Haynes goes all the way back to the late 80s/early 90s and he was doing the same stuff then and everybody in the business knows what he is. The idea that this “trolling” campaign where this Kyros fella was out there looking for people to sue and the best you could come up with was a Billy Jack Haynes to supposedly put forward as he’s going to be the representative of a class representing all of the people to ever perform for the WWE? Do you really think for a minute that people like Rock and Stone Cold think that Billy Jack Haynes is somebody they want representing their interests? It’s ridiculous. That is basically what he would be doing in that situation.
He (Kyros) was doing the same thing with him (Billy Jack Haynes) but just trying to do it with Dupree and that was trying to make some very sensational charges that were false from the minute they were made. When they were made, we got on the phone with him and said these charges you have made are false and you know they are false and if they are not withdrawn, we are going to seek sanctions against you. They quickly withdrew much of what they said that was absolutely false. They have continued to do the same thing however and the recent opinion that the judge issued dismissing Haynes’ claim and dismissing the claims of (Russ) McCullough, (Ryan) Sakoda and Matt Wiese (Luther Reigns) is (the judge) actually made findings that they had made false allegations in the lawsuit and noted that there are sanctions and notions pending against them and went on to describe all of these totally inconsistent and sometime incomprehensible allegations through this litigation. Billy Jack Haynes is just being used and will never see one penny for anything.
The rebranding of the World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment in 2002:
Actually it was kind of interesting the way that transition took place pretty quickly. It was another one of Vince’s clever and genius ideas to just switch one letter. The whole ordeal with the World Wild Life Fund was kind of crazy, and I never did understand why they cared because nobody ever confused us with them and watching the whole English Court proceedings and seeing how different that was then American Court proceedings was kind of frustrating from my standpoint because it was the one big case that I couldn’t handle. The English Court would not allow American Lawyers to try cases in their court rooms and so I could only go there and watch. And it was infuriating to sit there and watch that and to not be able to do anything. But whenever they issued their orders that we couldn’t be “WWF” in the way we wanted to be anymore, it was just too burdensome to comply with the requirements of what we had to do if we were going to be “WWF” and so Vince just came up with the idea of we will change to “WWE.” And I don’t know if you remember the slogan “get the F out;” It’s kind of clever and now it actually captures what they do maybe better than the word federation anyway because they are an entertainment company and that is exactly what the business is so it was a very successful rebrand I thought.
Other topics include seeing Shane and Stephanie McMahon’s growth, the future of WWE, WrestleMania 32’s impact, his first meeting Vince McMahon and more. You can check out the interview here.
While WWE has had a number of victories in court last month, just as the dust cleared from WrestleMania weekend, they were named in another lawsuit. Yesterday, Rene Goguen, best known as Rene Dupree, filed a lawsuit against the company in federal court in WWE’s home state of Connecticut. The main thrust of the complaint is that Dupree has not been paid royalties for his matches being aired on WWE Network Just over a week ago, Dupree had been asked on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast about the rumors of such a lawsuit being shopped to wrestlers, and here’s what he had to say:
“I wish they would pay me for the WWE Network because I think everyone who is on it should get some type of royalty off of that. Because I guess you are still part of the company in some way if they are showing your stuff, but at the same time they say that nobody watches the “old stuff”. Well take off all the old stuff off and watch your f–king subscriber count drop within six months. You know there is a lawsuit coming from that as well? They are being sued by everybody. They are being sued with the concussion lawsuit, the guys with the royalties and also the investors. Remember when they lost like 400 million dollars in one day? They pissed off a bunch of people and a bunch of investors are suing them too.”
When asked if he was a potential plaintiff, Dupree replied that “I cannot confirm or deny, I plead the fifth” while laughing. That was the last he said publicly about the potential lawsuit before it was filed yesterday.
I reached out to Jerry McDevitt, WWE’s outside counsel, for comment on the lawsuit, and here’s what he provided us in response:
“Aside from the complete lack of merit, the fact there are numerous decisions precluding the non-contractual claims, and the fact that the contract does not give him any rights that relate to the WWE Network, Goguen signed an agreement in 2011 which we believe precludes these claims. I do not think he told his lawyers about the above agreement, and they were notified of it last night with the obvious demand that the lawsuit be dismissed. They thanked me for telling them, and said they would look into it, which to me confirms he did not tell them.”
McDevitt later added that the 2011 agreement was not a WWE “Legends’ Contract.”
The 19 page complaint, which is embedded at the bottom of this article (and can also be viewed on Archive.org) focuses primarily on the language regarding home video royalties in Dupree’s 2003 Talent Booking Contract with WWE. Subsequent to Dupree signing with WWE (believed to be about 2004 when WWE launched the WWE 24-7/WWE Classics on Demand subscription video on demand service; an online version was added later), this language was added to the standard contract (emphasis mine):
7.5 No Royalties Paid to WRESTLER. Except as specifically set forth in Section 7.1 through 7.3 above, WRESTLER shall not be eligible for any payment or royalties with respect to any other goods, services or otherwise including without limitation to the following: television license fees; television subscription fees; internet subscription fees; subscription video on demand fees; magazine subscription fees and/or advertising; and/or distribution fees of any kind paid to PROMOTER by any entity in connection with the exploitation of the Intellectual Property.
Dupree’s attorneys (Clinton A. Krislov and Matthew T. Peterson of Krislov & Associates in Chicago and Brenden Leydon of Tooher Wocl & Leydon in WWE’s home town of Stamford, CT) are arguing that under the language of the contract Dupree signed in 2003, he’s entitled to royalties from WWE Network. There are various sections of the contract entitling him (or anyone else who signed this version of the contract) to various different royalty rates on different forms of WWE Video Products. Those are defined in the contract as (emphasis taken from the complaint) “video cassettes, videodiscs, CD ROM, or other technology, including technology not yet created,” In addition to WWE Network, the complaint argues that this language should also include licensing fees that WWE gets from Netflix.
The basic argument of the complaint is that…
Defendant breached its Booking Contract with Plaintiff by selling WWE Video Products (streaming videos on the WWE Network) of PPVs and Non-PPVs without paying any royalties to Plaintiff. Plaintiff assigned his intellectual property rights in perpetuity to WWE in exchange for royalty payments from the sales of WWE Video Products of PPVs and Non-PPVs.
And…
Defendant breached its Booking Contract with Plaintiff by licensing WWE Video Products (streaming video) of PPVs and Non PPVs without paying any royalties to Plaintiff.
Dupree’s lawyers are also trying to have the case certified as a class action lawsuit, which means that others similarly situated could join in. Here’s how they’re trying to define the class:
All individuals who have assigned their original and new intellectual property rights to WWE or a promotion that WWE has acquired the assets and/or the video library of, in exchange for perpetual royalty payments from WWE’s (or acquired promotion) or licensees’ sales of past pay-per-view events or non pay-per-view productions.
They then split the class into two sub-classes for WWE performers and non-WWE performers who were signed to promotions that WWE bought the video libraries of. I’m just a layman, but the way this is laid out in the complaint seems like it’s opening them up to plenty of scrutiny for WWE, as they make sure to note the contract language entitling wrestlers to home video royalties going back to 1980 (which may not be entirely accurate in the first place) while ignoring the aforementioned language about not being entitled to royalties from “television subscription fees; internet subscription fees; [and] subscription video on demand fees” that has been there for the past decade or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBKuom1D9W8
There have been other lawsuits like this in the past, but they didn’t involve plaintiffs with a WWE Talent Booking Contract. Doug Somers’ lawsuit over using his AWA matches failed, as did Steve Ray’s lawsuit over ESPN airing matches from herb Abrams’ UWF, while Doug and Tommy Gilbert (with Tommy representing his son Eddie’s estate) dropped their lawsuit against both WWE and ESPN over various footage of Eddie and Doug in the GWF, ECW, and WCW.
WWE talent booking contracts have become almost commonplace online, thanks in large part to WWE’s own filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a public company, all of World Wrestling Entertainment’s executive officers need to have their contracts released in SEC filings. Since WWE has multiple executive officers who also happen to perform for the company, that means that their talent contracts are all public and we see the current WWE contract whenever they re-sign. Older contracts have also come out in lawsuits over the years, as well, along with other internal pay documentation.
But one thing that I don’t recall seeing before is an official WWE termination letter. In one of the ongoing series of concussion-related lawsuits from wrestlers and their families represented by lawyer Konstantine Kyros, one was filed by WWE last week. Specifically, it’s the 2008 termination letter for Nelson Frazier Jr., then known as Big Daddy V, also known as Viscera and (King) Mabel. WWE outside counsel Jerry McDevitt filed a motion where one issue covered was Frazier’s place of residence, so he filed Frazier’s termination letter to show where he lived when the two parties ended their relationship. Here’s the full letter, minus personal information that I redacted:
There are a few key takeaways here beyond just the curiosity of seeing one of these:
This is a notice of his termination being effective three months later. It’s tricky to figure out precisely how that relates to the conventional wisdom that there’s a 90 day “non-compete” period, as what WWE allowed during that period has changed at times. Here, it’s pretty clear that there are still 90 days left that the wrestler is still under contract and there’s nothing about being allowed to work elsewhere. These days, wrestler can usually pick up non-televised indie bookings while still being paid his or her WWE guarantee for 90 days, which can be fairly lucrative. One unique example is Daniel Bryan, who was re-hired before the 90 days were up after his abrupt firing in 2010.
The wrestler being told to pay “particular attention” to the “promoter intellectual property” section of their contract is essentially telling them not to use their WWE names. In the case of Frazier, page 25 of his 2007 contractsays that the WWE intellectual property is Viscera, Vis, Big Vis, Mabel, M.O.M., Men on a Mission, Ministry of Darkness, Corporate Ministry, and The World’s Largest Love Machine.The previous page says his IP is just his real name.
Wrestlers must return “any tangible property” of WWE that they took possession of during the course of working for the company, “including, without limitation, costumes, accessories, inventions, and any title belts.” Since the wrestlers buy their own costumes, it’s hard t figure out what any of those could be other than the title belts.
Overall, though, there’s nothing too surprising here. It just helps demystify the inner workings of WWE a bit, and that’s always fun.
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt has publicly responded to the latest lawsuit brought against WWE, one filed by the family of the late Matt Osbourne, better known to 1990s WWE fans as the character “Doink The Clown.”
According to McDevitt, Osbourne’s family, much like the other families of former WWE performers are, “being targeted by attorneys who tell [wrestlers and their families] there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars” to be made from lawsuits similar to those recently filed against the National Football League (NFL).
Additionally, McDevitt stated that the lawsuits have no merit, noting, “They’re all different from the NFL. We never had anyone claim they had these kinds of injuries until [these attorneys] did it. They find the destitute, people who have no money, and told them there’s money to be made. That’s what is going on. … And I feel bad for these families, because they think they’ll make money off of this, and they’re not.”
For more information regarding the lawsuit, visit DallasNews.com.
McDevitt told celebrity-gossip website TMZ that the “claims are fraudulent” and the company will be fighting them. He also said that the three wrestlers are “being targeted by attorneys who tell them there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars they can make by joining a class action suit like this.”
Additionally, McDevitt stated that other wrestlers who have been approached to join the lawsuit feel it’s a scam.
“It’s sensational, but if you really look at … what was done specifically to them?” McDevitt added “There are almost no details as to what they actually suffered as a result of working with WWE.”
McDevitt was quoted in the article stating that WWE will likely “seek sanctions” against Kyros for bringing “frivolous lawsuits” against the company, noting that they feel Kyros is simply looking for a payday.
The WWE attorney also pointed out the fact that WWE provides health and wellness services for all of their performers, even when they retire.
“They just ignore these things and allege whatever they feel like alleging,” said McDevitt. “You can’t do that as a lawyer. You have to be basing your allegations on a reasonable investigation of the facts. It’s not some creative writing exercise to see if you can get media attention.”
McDevitt said Frazier’s case is a tragedy, but that the nearly 500-pound wrestler’s death had nothing to do with his career as a professional wrestler.
“It’s an embarrassment to be a lawyer sometimes,” McDevitt stated. “It’s ridiculous that someone can … try to blame someone because a gentleman with a weight problem died of a heart attack in the shower eight years after he last performed. It’s ridiculous to try and blame someone for that.”
WWE has issued a statement in response to the class-action “concussion lawsuit” filed by former wrestlers Vito Lograsso and Even Singleton (Adam Mercer in developmental).
For more information on the lawsuit and what they are alleging, check out our initial report.
WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt issued the following statement in response to the lawsuit:
“This lawsuit is virtually identical to one filed by the same lawyers in Oregon, neither of which have any merit. WWE has never concealed any medical information related to concussions, or otherwise, from our Talent. WWE was well ahead of sports organizations in implementing concussion management procedures and policies as a precautionary measure as the science and research on this issue emerged. We will vigorously contest this lawsuit.”