HUGE WWE Legal Threat! Matt Riddle Update! | WrestleTalk - video Dailymotion

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What are your thoughts on the ongoing WWE legal battles? Let us know in the comments! WWE Just Massively Changed Their Business.  https://youtu.be/5AXYEZgdZ_U Does AEW Make Money?  https://youtu.be/eyw9VqM-a4w More wrestling news on https://wrestletalk.com/ TITLE: HUGE WWE Legal Threat! Matt Riddle Update! | WrestleTalk #WWE #MattRiddle #WrestleTalk  Subscribe to WrestleTalk Podcasts   https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu Subscribe to partsFUNknown for lists, fantasy booking & more  https://bit.ly/32JJsCv Subscribe to NoRollsBarred  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UQPZe-8v4_UP1uxi4Mv6A Subscribe to WrestleTalk  https://bit.ly/3gKdNK3 SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!  Watch the latest wrestling news: https://shorturl.at/pAIV3 Buy WrestleTalk Merch here! https://wrestleshop.com/   Follow WrestleTalk: Twitter: https://twitter.com/_WrestleTalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WrestleTalk.Official Patreon: https://goo.gl/2yuJpo WrestleTalk Podcast on iTunes: https://goo.gl/7advjX WrestleTalk Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3uKx6HD  Written by: Luke Owen Presented by: Luke Owen Thumbnail by: Brandon Syres Image Sourcing by: Brandon Syres  About WrestleTalk: Welcome to the official WrestleTalk YouTube channel! WrestleTalk covers the sport of professional wrestling - including WWE TV shows (both WWE Raw & WWE SmackDown LIVE), PPVs (such as Royal Rumble, WrestleMania & SummerSlam), AEW All Elite Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, ROH, New Japan, and more. Subscribe and enable ALL notifications for the latest wrestling WWE reviews and wrestling news.  Sources used for research: https://wrestletalk.com/news/released-wwe-match-anoai-family-matt-riddle-jacob-fatu/ https://wrestletalk.com/news/mlw-update-following-wwe-settlement/ https://wrestletalk.com/news/aew-star-interested-wwe-move-mlw/ https://wrestletalk.com/news/mlw-update-following-wwe-settlement/ https://wrestletalk.com/news/released-wwe-match-anoai-family-matt-riddle-jacob-fatu/ https://wrestletalk.com/news/free-agent-aew-is-interested-in-set-to-return-to-mlw/  Youtube Channel Comments Policy We appreciate the comments and opinions our viewers provide. Do note that all comments are subject to YouTube auto-moderation and manual moderation review. We encourage opinions and discussion, but harassment, hate speech, bullying and other abusive posts will not be tolerated. Decisions on comment removal are made by the Community Manager. Please email us at support@wrestletalk.com with any questions or concerns.

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00:00 It caused Vince McMahon to fire his most trusted legal bulldog. Is it the reason we haven't

00:06 seen any more of Roman Reigns' cousins join the bloodline? Did it stop the Elite jumping

00:12 ship to WWE? And why, after all this time, did WWE simply settle their lawsuit with MLW?

00:21 I'm Luke Owen and this is how WWE lost their wrestling monopoly… for legal reasons.

00:34 On January 11th, 2022, Major League Wrestling, MLW, fired an antitrust lawsuit against WWE

00:41 with the basic accusations of blocking TV deals they were trying to acquire and attempts

00:45 to poach their talent. They were accusing WWE of operating an illegal monopoly. We'll

00:51 go into all the ins and outs of that lawsuit shortly, but the end point is thus. WWE settled.

00:58 On December 11th, 2023, Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics revealed via Twitter, "WWE

01:03 and MLW have come to a settlement in the antitrust case against WWE. Lawyers from both parties

01:10 filed today. The parties are in the process of completing the final settlement documents

01:14 and expected to file the appropriate dismissal papers within the next 30 days." He also

01:21 posted a picture of this settlement notice which is… thrilling I guess? The Hollywood

01:26 Reporter wrote that details weren't disclosed of the settlement, but it's a pretty surprising

01:31 finale to this case. WWE had this lawsuit dismissed on several occasions, but MLW kept

01:38 coming back and now WWE have backed down. WWE back down, name of your next PPV. PWInsider

01:45 reported that there is a lot of happiness among talent in MLW upon hearing about the

01:51 WWE settlement, as it means the company can again focus on growing the company rather

01:56 than fighting the biggest wrestling company on the planet. It also means they now have

02:01 money in the bank, with Dave Meltzer speculating - speculating not reporting - on Wrestling

02:06 Observer Radio that evidently they got some money from the lawsuit because they're greatly

02:11 expanding their schedule. And they said they're going to be in the market for expanding their

02:16 talent base. That expansion of talent has already been seen, with MLW announcing the

02:21 signing of free agent Sami Callihan, and it's been revealed that former WWE star Matt Riddle

02:27 will be wrestling for MLW on January 6th, 2024 in Philadelphia - against Jacob Fatu,

02:34 a match that will be emotionally charged given Riddle's history with the Bloodline. We'll

02:39 have more on the Fatus later in this episode. MLW themselves wrote on their website, "Winter

02:44 is here, but the hot stove is heating up." MLW's talent relations department - which

02:50 is in the midst of a significant overhaul - has been active in discussions with several

02:55 high profile free agents.

02:58 But what exactly was this lawsuit all about anyway? Major League Wrestling was a promotion

03:04 that launched in the early 2000s, but closed after a couple of years. It saw a revival

03:08 in 2017 under original founder and former WWE writer Cort Bauer, and has since been

03:13 seen as, well, below WWE and AEW and possibly even TNA, but certainly above NWA ever since

03:21 Billy Corgan lost his mind and put the title on Tyrus for a long period of time and then

03:25 did that drug scandal angle on a PPV that lost them a lucrative TV deal with the CW.

03:30 In 2022, MLW filed an antitrust suit against WWE, writing they were fighting against WWE's

03:37 ongoing attempts to undermine competition and monopolise the professional wrestling

03:41 market by interfering with MLW's contracts and business prospects.

03:46 The allegations start with Vice, who in the spring of 2021 struck a deal with MLW to air

03:51 archival footage of their promotion that then blossomed into bigger talks about the station

03:56 airing a weekly TV programme. The suit alleged that Vince McMahon was "pissed" about

04:01 this and that Susan Leveson, then Senior Vice President and head of WWE Studios, called

04:06 a Vice executive and warned them not to do a deal with MLW. The argument provided was

04:12 that WWE knew they had the leverage in this scenario because Vice aired Dark Side of the

04:18 Ring which featured WWE footage. On top of that, A&E own 20% of Vice and WWE and A&E

04:26 have a very close relationship. According to the suit, the Vice executive responded

04:30 to what Leveson was asking them to do and said that was illegal and an antitrust violation,

04:36 to which Leveson allegedly responded, "She cannot control McMahon." They claim that

04:40 WWE's interference cost MLW their Vice deal.

04:44 In July of 2021, MLW signed a deal with Tubi, a streaming service owned by Fox, and began

04:50 plans for TV tapings, which would include a press release from both parties about the

04:54 new relationship. However in August of 2021, according to the lawsuit, Stephanie McMahon

04:59 met with an executive of Tubi to request, or as they write, "initially pressure"

05:03 that MLW not air against WWE's NXT on Tuesday nights. This "initial pressure" then turned

05:10 into "terminate the agreement completely or we'll remove WWE from Fox." Fox, according

05:15 to the suit, sided with WWE. Which is hilarious when you consider how that relationship ended.

05:21 The other big allegation from the original lawsuit was that in August of 2020, WWE tried

05:26 to poach MLW's talent from their contracts by contacting them directly asking them to

05:31 get out of their MLW deals. This is the same accusation Tony Khan of AEW threw at WWE in

05:38 late 2022 - a claim that has been backed up by reports from several reputable outlets

05:44 including Fightful Select. The suit also claims that WWE told other independent wrestlers

05:49 that if they worked for MLW in the future, they would not be hired by WWE - which meant

05:55 that wrestlers were apprehensive of taking bookings from major league wrestling.

06:00 Throughout 2022, WWE got the lawsuit dismissed not once, but twice - with Judge Edward D'Avalia

06:06 noting that MLW did not provide sufficient facts for the case. MLW filed again in March

06:12 of 2023. WWE tried to dismiss this one too, but this time, the judge ruled in favour of

06:19 MLW. So what changed?

06:23 Well in January of 2023, MLW reached a deal with cable channel Reels to air their TV show

06:28 starting in February. In that same month, Reels agreed to a deal with NBCUniversal to

06:33 be part of their streaming platform. The name of that streaming platform was Peacock. Can

06:39 you guess what might have happened next? The deal between MLW and Reels was announced that

06:44 it was coming to an end, with the station telling PWInsider, "We evaluated wrestling

06:48 on Reels and decided that it was not a great fit with the current programming direction

06:52 of the network, and MLW agreed. So there are no further conversations taking place."

06:58 But did MLW really agree? Because in March of 2023, they cited the Reels deal falling

07:06 apart as part of their amended lawsuit - calling WWE's behaviour "predatory conduct". They

07:12 also added to their previous accusations, citing Triple H contacting Madison Square Garden

07:18 in 2018 to get them to cancel the joint ROH/New Japan PPV - which Madison Square Garden did

07:24 until Sinclair, the then-owners of Ring of Honor, threatened to sue Madison Square Garden

07:29 so they put the show back on. They also write in this new suit how WWE ran two PPV events

07:34 around AEW's All Out in 2022 in an effort to prevent AEW from posing a real threat to

07:42 WWE's market share. They also expanded on the contract tampering allegations, alleging

07:47 WWE contacted Swerve Strickland in 2018 when he was MLW's World Champion and asked him

07:53 to breach his contract so he could sign with WWE. They also allege that in 2021, they did

07:59 the same with Davey Boy Smith Jr. - one of MLW's top stars at the time - and rather

08:04 than use him on TV, WWE only had Smith wrestle one dark match and then released him a few

08:09 months later. The lawsuit writes, "By WWE failing to use Smith in its programming, WWE

08:15 made clear its intentions to impair MLW's ability to build its brand and viewership

08:21 by removing one of its successful wrestlers." What's really interesting is that around

08:26 this time, there was talk of WWE wanting to bring in new names to the company, but felt

08:31 they couldn't because of the lawsuit. In May of 2023, Kurt Bauer revealed on Busted

08:37 Open Radio that WWE had multiple chances to sign MLW's Jacob Fatu, but opted not to despite

08:45 him having three or four tryouts at the WWE PC. Fatu is part of the Anoa'i family, and

08:51 was argued as a no-brainer to bring in to expand the Bloodline faction - one of WWE's

08:57 most popular storylines in years. Similarly, Sean Ross Sapp noted on the Fightful

09:02 Post Show review of the December 18th, 2023 edition of Monday Night Raw that WWE were

09:07 confident they could have brought Trinity back into WWE earlier in 2023. Trinity, the

09:13 former Naomi in WWE, is the wife of Bloodline member Jimmy Uso. While it could be argued

09:19 this was to do with the MLW case, it was also reported in early 2023 that WWE had a "talent

09:26 firing freeze" due to the merger deal with Endeavor. But the lawsuit did play a factor

09:31 according to other sources, with Dave Meltzer noting in a June edition of the Wrestling

09:35 Observer Newsletter that WWE were not going to risk any tampering when it came to wrestlers'

09:42 contracts, especially those signed to AEW - specifically The Elite.

09:48 In August of 2023, it was announced by AEW that The Elite of Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks

09:53 and Hangman Adam Page had re-signed new multi-year deals with the company. While that may feel

09:58 like it was a fairly obvious bit of news, it wasn't always guaranteed. There was all

10:03 of the Brawlout drama, CM Punk was coming back for his own TV show called Collision,

10:08 and WWE were interested in bringing The Elite into their ranks. Dave Meltzer let this slip

10:14 on Wrestling Observer Radio, noting that if it wasn't for the MLW lawsuit, WWE would

10:20 have made a play for The Elite. However, WWE were very leery because of the MLW lawsuit.

10:27 WWE has been uncharacteristically not aggressively trying to steal talent. WWE had interest in

10:34 The Elite, and Meltzer adds that The Elite had interest in hearing from WWE, but nothing

10:41 could be done. However, like Jacob Fatu and Trinity, this could also be down to the talent

10:46 hiring freeze. But really the biggest change in this lawsuit case came on July 7th 2023.

10:52 Because on July 7th 2023, Jerry McDivitt announced that he was retiring. Now you may be asking,

10:58 who is Jerry McDivitt? And the answer to that would be, one of the most powerful and influential

11:04 people in the history of WWE. As WWE's go-to lawyer, he helped the company through the

11:10 Steroid Trial of 1994, the Owen Hart wrongful death lawsuit, the aftermath of Chris Benoit

11:16 and many, many concussion lawsuits. Without Jerry McDivitt, WWE might not be the powerhouse

11:23 it is today.

11:25 McDivitt told WrestleNomics that because of the MLW lawsuit was not going to get thrown

11:29 out, he wanted to retire now as he felt this thing could drag out until 2025 and he didn't

11:35 want to be working until then. But there was clearly more to this story than met the eye,

11:39 as it wasn't just Jerry that left the case, the entire law firm representing WWE in the

11:44 law case were gone. K and L Gates were removed from the MLW case and were replaced with the

11:49 same high-powered firm that was handling the Endeavor merger. Dave Moulter noted on Wrestling

11:54 Observer Radio, WWE thought the MLW case was going to go away and Jerry McDivitt wrote

11:59 arguments to get the case dismissed and they were all rejected so the case is going forward.

12:05 You don't replace an entire firm unless there's something going on and obviously

12:10 Vince McMahon was not happy with that aspect of the case not going away. And like the end

12:16 of the 1983 movie War Games, this new law firm felt that the only way to win was not

12:23 to play. Spoilers for that movie.

12:25 So they settled. But if they've spent the last couple of years fighting this case and

12:29 arguing they're not a monopoly, why did WWE settle? And the answer is quite likely

12:36 to make it go away. As Dave Moulter noted on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE were leery

12:42 about this case. He added if WWE do something wrong and it gets out, that's not a good

12:47 thing for the lawsuit. And as we've seen over the course of this video and over the

12:52 course of wrestling history, some of the things that WWE love to do, allegedly, are things

12:59 like contract tampering, counter-programming, using their leverage to get competitor business

13:04 deals squashed. Again I must stress, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. They allegedly love

13:09 to do these things. And you can't really do those things if there's a lawsuit accusing

13:14 you of doing those things. So they settled. Out of court. And everyone moves on.

13:21 What's interesting when looking back at this lawsuit is that MLW were almost a couple

13:26 of years late to the game when it came to accusing WWE of being a monopoly. By the time

13:32 2022 had rolled around, All Elite Wrestling was thriving. MLW's lawsuit alleges that

13:37 AEW aren't profitable, something we've discussed here on the WrestleTalk News, that

13:41 video is linked to in the description down below. But AEW have gotten TV deals with Warner

13:45 Brothers, they've sold out Wembley Stadium, they've signed top talent from around the

13:49 world with hot free agents like Will Ospreay. They have got great ratings on TV and lucrative

13:56 sponsorship deals. And that isn't me stoking tribalistic fires or being an AEW mark. That

14:02 was WWE's legal defence. We can't possibly be a monopoly. AEW are successful and have

14:10 beaten us in the ratings on multiple occasions. And now we're looking at a 2024 where WWE

14:16 is on top of the world, AEW is bouncing back, TNA is offering seven figure deals to sign

14:22 talent and MLW is trying to make a name for themselves. Top that up with the free agent

14:27 market of 2024 and this wrestling world is going to get a hell of a lot more interesting

14:31 for people interested in the business side of things and fun for those who love wrestling.

14:37 Which is all of us.

14:40 So yes, WWE were once a monopoly force in the world of wrestling. But unlike the last

14:46 20 years since the collapse of WCW, WWE are far from the only successful game in town.

14:53 They're just the biggest. And that's not the only change to WWE's business models.

14:58 Click the video on screen right now to find out more.

HUGE WWE Legal Threat! Matt Riddle Update! | WrestleTalk

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