Major League Wrestling lawsuit against WWE primarily relies on its inability to forge a media deal and blames the Stamford, Connecticut company for it.
The lawsuit, which was dubbed an antitrust lawsuit, cites Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act claiming that the WWE monopolizes the pro wrestling market as it has 85% of the market share since acquiring WCW in 2001.
In addition to the antitrust claim, MLW cites causes of action for Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations, Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations and violations of statutory Business and Professions Code.
The major issue in the lawsuit is MLW accusing WWE of edging it out of the media market. Primarily, it brings up an alleged interference with Vice TV. It claims that under a May 2021 agreement, Vice agreed to air MLW’s archival footage and were engaged in talks to broadcast new licensed programs. However, the lawsuit alleges that a Senior Vice President at WWE contacted a Vice executive stating that Vince McMahon was “pissed” that Vice was airing MLW content and wanted it to stop. With leverage over Vice, the network complied with WWE.
Thus, MLW’s efforts to air current content of its promotion last one lone episode on Vice TV instead of continued episodes of MLW programming. Also, archival footage of MLW no longer aired on Vice TV.
The second instance occurred when MLW entered into a “lucrative agreement with Tubi” a streaming service owned by Fox. Per the lawsuit the agreement with Tubi would “have had a profound impact on MLW’s business by giving it exposure to Fox’s broad television and NFL football audience, further positioning MLW for future media deals. Again, a WWE executive threatened an MLW business interest citing that it would cease doing business with Fox and would pull programming from Fox platforms. This time it was Stephanie McMahon that put the pressure on a Tubi executive.
There was also another proposed deal with Fite TV which did not come to execution due to pressure from the WWE.
Notably, Court Bauer, MLW CEO, used to work for WWE. It’s not known if the reasons for the purported predatory practices were due to Bauer’s previous relationship with WWE.
Payout Perspective:
While the MLW antitrust complaint does not have much meat to it than the UFC, Golden Boy or Top Rank antitrust lawsuits, the claims relate to predatory practices on the part of WWE. MLW claims that WWE has 85% of the market which would be sufficient enough to make a meritorious Sherman Antitrust Act Claim under Section 2. Yet, it would depend on the facts of the case. It would be hard to claim that the WWE foreclosed a whole market to MLW if you consider the success of AEW and other independents to forge media deals without WWE stopping them. But we shall see has compelling MLW’s case is as this moves forward.
Looking toward next steps the WWE (which has denied the allegations) will likely attempt to move the venue of the case from San Francisco to Stanford, Connecticut. The case was filed in San Francisco (despite MLW being based in New York) due in part to the favorable plaintiffs’ cases in the area. You will recall in the WWE concussion litigation; it was able to move the case to Connecticut federal court and then have the case subsequently dismissed. It will then make a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
MPO will continue to follow.
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