New information has come in regarding WWE attempting to get a securities fraud class action lawsuit against them dropped. This latest lawsuit was filed by the City of Warren Police and Fire Retirement System this past March.
Part of the lawsuit is about WWE’s dealings with The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its negotiations with the television network, MBC.
The other part of the lawsuit includes claims made by a former WWE star, who is being listed as a confidential witness. This talent gave some details on the travel issues from Saudi Arabia last year.
Essentially, this situation was how the majority of the WWE crew spent over 24 hours in the country due to issues with their plane because of a conflict over money between WWE and Saudi Arabia government officials. For more on this interesting story, click here.
Fast forward to last week, longtime WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt shot down these claims in a statement.
Now, WWE is not only denoting the allegations made by the wrestler but also going after the plaintiffs’ sources. According to court filings found by Heel by Nature, WWE feels that plaintiffs’ sources came from various wrestling news sites and shouldn’t be brought into a lawsuit.
“The only sources cited in the CAC are two confidential witnesses (neither of whom interacted with the Individual Defendants, participated in negotiations over the MENA rights deal, or worked at WWE’s corporate offices), declarations provided by Defendants prior to filing the CAC, and a series of “news reports” that consist almost exclusively of unsupported content cherry-picked from wrestling websites founded on multiple layers of hearsay and unverified statements from Twitter.”
WWE is also dismissing statements from former WWE commentator Hugo Savinovich, who at the time was one of the first people to give details about the incident.
WWE also made it clear that Saudi Arabia paid for events held over the course of 2018 and 2019, but the only outstanding payments owed are “certain reimbursable costs” from the 2019 Crown Jewel event. WWE is owed #2.4 million.
WWE also brought up reports from wrestling journalists and websites regarding the situation in Saudi Arabia.
“The so-called “media reports” also include other unidentified “wrestling-focused websites” that cite to “an individual” who was supposedly “in contact with sources in the WWE” that stated “the [Saudis] come up short” by a couple million dollars every show (i.e., the three done so far)quotes in the CAC are from the Twitter page of a self-proclaimed wrestling journalist.
“Even if these websites and Twitter cites could be deemed “news sources,” none of these unverified, non-particularized hearsay allegations supports that any payments breached a contract or indicates a relationship so tattered that no deal could be done.”
WWE also dismissed the reports that allege that Vince McMahon cut the feed to the event in Saudi Arabia, which allegedly caused travel issues back to the United States for talent. WWE brought up how they and the charter airline issued statements on the matter at the time.
WWE cited a news article of the coverage that acknowledges WWE’s description of the mechanical issues and yet “a radio commentator who (without any explanation or sources) offered his own contrary opinion on his radio show and Twitter.”
You can check out the full document here.
