Examining WWE's Claims In Statement About New Lawsuit
Last night, WWE issued a statement regarding the lawsuit that they filed on Monday in an attempt to preempt "concussion lawsuits" from Blackjack Mulligan, Koko B. Ware, Dynamite Kid, and Ivan Koloff. This came about because Konstantine Kyros, the lawyer behind the majority of similar suits against WWE, sent WWE "letters of representation" for the four wrestlers on June 2nd. Since WWE's statement was a little vague if you haven't read through the complaint, here's a bit of an explanation as to what WWE is talking about:
Claims in two different federal courts that five individuals died prematurely due to head injuries when in fact all five individuals are alive today.
Apparently, what happened here was that in drafting two different complaints covering five different wrestlers, the plaintiffs used a complaint regarding a deceased wrestler (ostensibly Nelson "Mabel/Viscera" Frazier") as a template. Kyros classified it as a "scrivener error" in court, but then continued by saying "But my ? my client Nelson Frazier's dead at the age of 43." This in spite of the case being argued not involving Frazier. The judge took issue with the statement :
"Does the Complaint reference Mr. Frazier? Are you going to reference every wrestler that's dead in your Complaint? I don't ? I don't follow that. You really need to read and get a better grip on the pleading standard in the next week and file an amended complaint."
Falsely stating that an individual's years of performance with WWE spanned 22 years from 1985 through 2007, when in fact the individual performed for only 2 years (1985-1986 and 1992-1993) and made one appearance in 2007.
This one is pretty simple, as it concerns how the time that Matt Osborne (best known as Matt Borne) spent in the company, but they decided not to name names in the statement for whatever reason. The 1985-1986 run was when he came in for a run as little more than a good working enhancement wrestler, although he does hold the distinction of being in the best match on the first WrestleMania (against Ricky Steamboat). The 1992-1993 stint was when he was the original, evil Doink the Clown, while the one-off in 2007 was his one other appearance as Doink after being replaced years earlier.
WWE did also have its own factual issues in the new complaint, stating that "Defendant Ware [Koko B. Ware] performed for WWE in or around 1999. Defendant Perras [Ivan Koloff] last performed for an entity known as Capitol Wrestling Corporation." In actuality, Ware did work a shot in 2005 to lose to Rob Conway (when he was running through various legends) on Sunday Night Heat, while Koloff did in fact work for the current WWE in 1993 when the company was still known as Titan Sports.
Alleging that head injury led to the death of a morbidly obese former performer who died of a heart attack years after last performing for WWE.
This refers to the Nelson Frazier case and is pretty self-explanatory otherwise.
A claim that an individual suffered from deafness allegedly due to head injury when said individual has publicly stated that he was deaf since birth.
This refers to Vito "Big Vito" LoGrasso, who said on THe Undisputed Wrestling Show last year that "I am three-quarters deaf and I've been that way my whole life. I made it, I did my thing." The issue here is self-evident from WWE's statement.
Claiming that head injury led to the accidental drug overdose of a former performer over 20 years after he last performed.
This refers to Matt Borne, since he last wrestled for WWE in 1993 and died last year. He still wrestled for years after leaving WWE, plus this fits with the plaintiffs' arguments that repeated head injuries cause long-term problems where symptoms may not present for years. Borne had battled issues with substance abuse going back to early in his career, but that doesn't necessarily negate the point.