TNA Wrestling latest attempt at picking a fight with the WWE will come in the court room. TNA filed a lawsuit last week against the WWE and a former employee on a number of charges related to contract tampering.
I wish I was kidding but this is no joke. The lawsuit contends that the WWE obtained confidential information on TNA talent contracts to be used in an attempt to poach talent. The lawsuit claimed interference with existing contracts, conversion, breach of contract, civil conspiracy, unfair competition and violation of the Tennessee Uniform Trade Secrets Act.
[adinserter block=”2″]This all goes back to former TNA employee Brian Wittenstein. Wittenstein joined the WWE and reportedly gave them confidential contractual information regarding TNA talent. The WWE claim that they fired Wittenstein as soon as he presented this information and they immediately contacted TNA. TNA contends that the WWE waited weeks to inform them of Wittenstein’s actions.
Apparently a lot of this surrounds the recent Ric Flair mystery regarding his non-appearances in TNA. Dave Meltzer reports that Flair informed TNA that he wanted to leave and re-sign with the WWE. Flair’s contract is coming due and Meltzer reports that Dixie planned to negotiate a new deal. WWE attorneys dispute any claims that the company was trying to lure Flair away. Meltzer reports that Flair told TNA that he was done a few weeks ago and no-showed the Louisville house shows on his own. This would put into question the report on PWInsider.com last week that reported Flair was pulled from the house shows, as well as the fact that TNA did not want Flair back. This is why nobody is talking regarding Flair and his status with TNA.
I am no lawyer but this lawsuit sounds like a joke. First of all, TNA publicly announce new contracts. While they never give financials, they do announce terms such as one year, three year, etc. In other words if WWE was targeting a TNA talent all they would have to do is search on Google.com and they could find out like I could when someone’s deal is coming due. There is nothing confidential about that.
Two, I may be missing some guys but the WWE has only signed a handful of TNA Wrestling talent in the 10 years that TNA has been around. Monty Brown, Ron Killings, Awesome Kong, Christian, Kid Kash, CM Punk, Kevin Nash, Booker T, and Chris Harris are the only guys that come to mind, although I may be missing someone. This isn’t as if the WWE is frothing at the mouth to steal talent like in the old WCW-WWE wars. I have to think that management in Stamford has a lot more to worry about than when Crimson and Rob Terry’s contracts are due.
If it were about financials I don’t think they would make a difference anyway. I can’t recall reading many stories of the WWE getting into bidding wars with TNA over talent. The only one I can remember is Christian and they got him. Sting stayed with TNA last year but he didn’t appear to be seriously negotiating with the WWE. Heck, would it really be that hard for the WWE to match the Knockouts salaries? Once again, here you have a case where you have the Knockouts publicly stating or complaining about what they make.
Finally, how could these contracts be so confidential when the TNA guys themselves make it public when their contracts are due? Matt Morgan and Kurt Angle are two talents that made public statements about wanting to negotiate with the WWE as their deals were coming due. I don’t blame them, it is smart negotiating. However, for Dixie Carter to believe that her talent isn’t contacting WWE to see if there is interest would be absurd.
[adinserter block=”1″]It is nice of TNA to flatter themselves into thinking that the WWE are planning major raids on her talent but that isn’t the case. It sounds to me like the attorneys smell some blood in the waters and are about to run up a nice tab on Dixie. I also think that there may be some buyer’s remorse on Dixie’s part about the way the WWE played her for a fool when it came to Ric Flair appearing at the WWE Hall of Fame back in March.
Regardless, I don’t think that TNA has a leg to stand on here. Unless more comes out that we are unaware of, this all just seems like a big waste of everyone’s time and resources.
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To add to your list, both Kazarian and Johnny Swinger were signed away from TNA at one point.
What I think the writer of this article isn't understanding is it's not the length of the contract but what's contained in the contract that's the big deal. I doubt TNA is angry about length being known, but how much they're being paid and anything else contained in the deal can lead to poaching.
When WWE knows a wrestler is being paid X amount of money, WWE can easily use that information to offer that wrestler a significant amount over that, and know precisely when to make that offer so that it sounds appealing.
To believe there isn't some interest by WWE in TNA's talent is just foolish, as they've made attempts to acquire a ton of TNA talent not listed in this article, including both AJ Styles and Kazarian. WWE always has use for newer talent, and the thing is for years they've poached the indy circuit but had to place talent in FCW. By taking talent that's had previous TV experience, WWE doesn't have to throw these talents into development.
not a ridiculous lawsuit at all. wwe and brian wittenstein look dodgy…….so tna are well within their right of taking wwe to court. but wwe probably will have better lawyers.
They certainly haven't come out of this one looking good!
But I can see why they did it. I don't think it really has anything to do with Ric Flair – clearly he wanted to leave TNA anyway (he certainly didn't want to leave WWE in the first place).
You'll notice the judge gave an injunction to prevent WWE from destroying the information that was passed to them. If I were TNA, I'd want to see exactly what information was leaked to WWE. I think that's fair – they got blindsided over the Flair Hall of Fame appearance, so why should they trust that WWE have been forthcoming in returning everything that was leaked?