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What a time it is to be alive for WWE lawyers like Jerry McDevitt! The litigation just keep flooding in from Konstantine Kyros and his partners in crime. Earlier today, they served WWE with a lawsuit of doom on the behalf of over 50 ex-wrestlers who are suing the company over independent contractor misclassification, "racketeering activities" and the now familiar complaints about fraudulent concealment and negligent misrepresentation of the connection between repetitive head trauma and long-term neurocognitive damage, illness, and decline.
The performers involved in the lawsuit includes some major names, as well as a lot of also-rans:
- Road Warrior Animal (the brother of current WWE producer John Laurinaitis)
- Jimmy Snuka
- Paul Orndorff
- Ken Patera
- King Kong Bundy
- Bill Eadie, aka The Masked Superstar and Demolition Ax
- Barry Darsow, aka Demolition Smash and Repo Man
- Don Leo Jonathan
- Angelo Mosca
- Chavo Guerrero, Jr., who currently still wrestles for Lucha Underground
- Chavo Guerrero, Sr., aka Chavo Classic
- Marty Jannetty
- Ahmed Johnson
- Sabu
- Shane Douglas (aka Dean Douglas)
- Muhammad Hassan
- Rodney Mack
- Mark Jindrak, who currently still wrestles for CMLL in Mexico
- Sylvain Grenier
- (John) Heidenreich
- The One Man Gang (aka Akeem)
- "The Natural" Butch Reed
- The Warlord
- The Barbarian
- Jim Brunzell
- Boris Zhukov
- Outlaw Ron Bass
- John Nord, aka The Berzerker
- Bryan Clark, aka Adam Bomb
- Mark Canterbury, aka Henry Godwinn
- Tracy Smothers, aka Freddie Joe Floyd
- Mike Enos, aka Blake Beverley
- Johnny Stamboli
- Jesse Barr (aka Jimmy Jack Funk)
- Jim Powers
- Rip "The Crippler" Oliver
- Mantaur
- Timothy Well of the mid 90s tag team Well Dunn
- Black Bart
- Enhancement talent Omar Atlas, Lou Marconi, Rod Price and Donald Driggers
- Jazz
- 70s/80s womens wrestlers Susan Green, Judy Martin and Princess Victoria
- Former 00s developmental womens wrestlers Bobbi Billard
- Slick
- Dave Hebner
- Earl Hebner, who still referees for TNA
- Bernard Knighton (the personal representative of Brian "Axl Rotten" Knighton's estate)
As a layperson, it seems that some of these claims will be barred due to statute of limitations issues. However, as the lawsuit alleges ongoing contractual fraud, including the "Contractor Nostalgia Agreements" that many retired wrestlers have signed, clearly many of the claims won't be time-barred. This is the most aggressive legal attack over the way WWE does business that the company has ever faced. My instinct is that Kyros is going so hard after WWE's alleged independent contractor misclassification of their wrestlers in an attempt to force them to settle the lawsuit out of court, which was a strategy that succeeded for Shannon "Daffney" Spruill in her Workers’ Compensation claim against TNA.
It should be noted that WWE has issued the following response to this bombshell lawsuit:
"This is another ridiculous attempt by the same attorney who has previously filed class action lawsuits against WWE, both of which have been dismissed. A federal judge has already found that this lawyer made patently false allegations about WWE, and this is more of the same. We’re confident this lawsuit will suffer the same fate as his prior attempts and be dismissed."
Kyros' strategy does seem to be to throw all the mud he can find at WWE's legal wall to see what sticks. That approach may not find sympathy with the Connecticut judges who will oversee this case.