March 31, 2019- “And when you’ve lost the moral high ground to the fucking NFL, you’re morally subterranean.” -John Oliver
At midnight my phone began to “blow up.” The HBO comedian, John Oliver had just launched a sustained attack on the WWE and its Chairman to his millions of viewers. Mr. Oliver hits nearly all of the issues raised in the WWE lawsuits: 1) Misclassification as Independent Contractors and inability to Unionize; 2) Unconscionable Contracts (actually shows Nelson Frazier’s Contract- deceased plaintiff whose family we represent) and sharply hits the death clause; 3) Lack of Health Insurance, workers’ compensation, pensions and health care; 4) No offseason; 5) The WWE’s Health crisis and premature death rates of pro wrestlers. This is a massive media victory and noteworthy vindication of the wrestlers’ legal claims.
The piece contains all of the talking points familiar to readers of this blog: The Jessie Ventura Unionize interview, the infamous Armen Keteyian paper in your face Vince McMahon Interview, the Keteyian Roddy Piper interview.
Amazingly Mr. Oliver concludes the very long segment with a call to action for the fans to stand up for wrestlers’ rights at Wrestlemania 35 on 4/7/19 with signs and chants!!! The segment ends with a satirical advertisement exhorting fans to see: “all your favorite wrestlers having access to: “retirement accounts,” “worker’s comp” and “family and medical leave,” i.e. the same things the wrestlers seek in their lawsuit. It goes further and describes the death rate, imagines something called an “offseason” and even ridicules the particularly embarrassing fact that many wrestlers depend on fan financed gofund me accounts to pay medical expenses (shows one for Perry Saturn).
This is a MUST WATCH for anyone following the lawsuit and everyone concerned for wrestlers. Millions of people now have a clue about what we have all been fighting for. This is a transformative moment, for the first time a major blow for the truth about pro wrestling has been delivered by a major media outlet. Not since the Chris Benoit story has there been this much attention to the plight of wrestlers. Thank you John!
FULL Vindication and expose of the myriad legal claims made by former WWE wrestlers in the lawsuits filed by Kyros Law.
WWE is likely furious to have finally received the widespread media coverage they covet the week before WrestleMania and yet none of the focus is on the wrestlers, the matches or the historic women s main event, but rather placing the promotion under the microscope and examining its business practices and treatment of talent.