August 1, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of Body Slam Briefs, Jeff Lipman, serving as the diabolical in-house general counsel for the Wrestling Soup Network, discusses various legal matters involving prominent wrestling figures and organizations. Topics include the Kevin Kelly/Tate twins case against AEW, Vince McMahon's recent car accident and potential legal ramifications, the John Moxley case and its jurisdictional challenges, and the ongoing Mel Phillips 'Ring Boy' case. Jeff also delves into the legal battles surrounding Hulk Hogan, offering insights into his financial state and speculating about potential estate issues. Lipman wraps up with reflections on the impact of the Hulk Hogan Gawker case on media-related lawsuits and mentions various podcasts and shows in the Wrestling Soup Network.
00:00 Introduction and Show Motivation
01:57 Kevin Kelly and Tate Twins Case
03:23 Vince McMahon's Car Accident
06:57 Jon Moxley Case Update
12:26 Mel Phillips and Ring Boy Case
20:52 Hulk Hogan's Estate Speculation
27:42 Closing Remarks and Show Plugs
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wrestling-soup--1425249/support.
00:00 Introduction and Show Motivation
01:57 Kevin Kelly and Tate Twins Case
03:23 Vince McMahon's Car Accident
06:57 Jon Moxley Case Update
12:26 Mel Phillips and Ring Boy Case
20:52 Hulk Hogan's Estate Speculation
27:42 Closing Remarks and Show Plugs
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wrestling-soup--1425249/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Tells and chaders in the cause.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
In this legal made slam the gavel feel attention of
wrestling true through a web of blood, body slam breeze,
hit landors and I never before.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Violent losses, settle scull, body.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Slam bree ingredients. Everyone it is evil, dose or dose
evil doesn't much matter in this case. It's Jeff Lippman,
the diabolical in house general counsel for the Wrestling Soup Network,
and this is a.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Somewhat delayed body slam briefs not really so much. There's
a lot of little stuff and a little bit of congect.
Sure that's going to happen today. I wasn't really motivated
to do a show for a while, but then I
got the I talked.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
To miss and the last show that did with the
conversation with him did really well, so I'm hoping that
that will do well. Now. It did really well by
my standards. Whether it did well by super standards, I
don't know, but you know, I guess I'm testing whether
or not that's because of my co star there, my
(01:29):
my conversationalists Anthony Misharry Thomas, or that people just gravitate
towards that show. But even if it was because of him,
I'm also saying, if maybe some of you come back anyway,
this content probably isn't convincing to do any of that.
So there's a bunch of legal things that they've come
(01:50):
to fruition or happen lately. None of that's probably as
juicy as anybody wants, but nevertheless, so we're going to
start with, in no particular order, the Kevin Kelly Kate
Twins' case against AW, which was removed to the Florida
(02:11):
Federal Court. AW filed a motion to remove to arbitration.
That motion was granted. Remember I've spoken a million times,
probably with not a lot of popularity or fanfare, regarding
the Grant case, which is still going on. That arbitration
is nearly undefeated. I think in wrestling cases it's I mean,
(02:35):
I'm sure these cases have settled somewhere that didn't make
it to the public records. But I think maybe one
case overcame arbitration and might have been I think raven,
but I'm not even sure about that anyway. But the
plaintiff's team, which includes Stephen Pinu, has appealed that decision,
So that appeal is still pending talked. To win an appeal,
(02:58):
you've got to show that there were some sort of
era of law or abusive discretion below, which is hard
to do in any corporate It's even harder to do
in a federal court. I know Stephen will fight the
good fight, and for a lot of reasons, I'm rooting
for him and for that case to go forward. But
at this point it's still in arbitration. Dince McMahon got
(03:24):
into a car accident. Got into a car accident, sort
of bizarrely, the same day hul Cogan passed. M'd have
been within a couple hours of Hogan's passing. I don't
know if it was after and Vince was driving that
way because he was upset. It seems like he was
in northern Connecticut, going to likely to a ferry or
some causeway to get to Martha's vineyard. Anyway, he was
(03:45):
weaving in an out of traffic. Apparently a state trooper
on Mark Carr, was following him, not as an escort,
but as Faye would have it, the state trooper initiated
a traffic stop what seems to be about two seconds
too late, because as Vince was weaving in dropping eighty
or ninety miles an hour, and he was side of
(04:06):
a reckless driving by the way, he veered into another
car he did try to avoid. The collision wasn't successful,
no serious injuries, but I guarantee you that the victim
of a woman who posts on social media that day,
I wouldn't be surprised if that lawsuit house has already
(04:27):
been filed. Probably also naming whatever the police agency is
and whatever municipality they're from, if it's Connecticut Highway Patrol
or state troopers, probably a state of Connecticut as well,
for not acting fast enough. Also strangely enough, in what
seems to be a bizarre coincidence, the impact was so
substantial and there was debris all over the place that
(04:50):
some debris actually crossed over the median into the opposite
direction of traffic, hit another vehicle, which happens to likely
be a vehicle of a WWE employee, but probably just
going to work. There's no reason to believe that they
were or could have even possibly been in any way,
(05:10):
shape or form related. So anyway, that's unverified as just
comes from a post I read online. I think it was.
If it's wrong, was Brandon Thurston's fault because I think
he posted it on X. Anyway, so Vince was sided
with reckless driving, which here in Maryland it's it's like
(05:32):
a speeding ticket on steroids. But in law of states
it's a misdemeanor or a misdemeanor which could potentially carry
jail time. Technically, any graphic citation is some sort of
a misdemeanor. But this I'm not really sure what this is.
But Vince has a court date in about a month.
In any event, again he's likely to have another lawsuit,
(05:54):
and you know, don't, like I said, don't be surprised
if the law enforcement agency and they're governing body isn't
named as well, and all of a sudden, the injuries will
probably be worse than including the injuries. Apparently there was
a dog in the car, so the dog was reported
as being okay. But you know, I guess dogs can
get you know, back paying that pain and paw pain
(06:19):
and other things can set in later on. Anyway, not
to make life light of that, that's true. I mean
a lot of times, you know, shock adrenaline, a lot
of times your your whiplash and other kinds of soft
tissue injury doesn't present until the day after or sometimes
even others more more more serious, especially the tank of
(06:41):
a Mercedes going at that high rate of speed. Back
when I was a successful person, I had a couple
of Mercedes in a row, and they are sturdy, sturdy vehicles,
all right. So that's that. On the John Moxley case,
remember this is the one in the town. It's like
two months old. John Moxley apparently bumped into a shove
(07:05):
day cameraman. There was a subcontractor independent contractor talent that
or you know, extra crew members at AW and other
companies have used the mission. I covered this at great depth,
so if you want to hear about all the ins
and outs of that, listen to that past Buddy Slam brief.
But what AW did is they filed a motion to
(07:28):
remove this from Michigan State Court to federal court in Illinois. Now,
mind you, there's a federal court. I'm pretty sure in
every single state. Now at the appellate level or the
second appellate level, there's usually a number of states that
are covered by that level. But that's so that's why
you get this like the thirteenth District Cord or the
(07:50):
ninth district court. That's not this. This is this is
the trial level court. Every state has a federal court.
So there's there there's a federal court in Michigan, and
so AW. So apparently AW is incorporated or LLC is
organized in Delaware. It domesticated, it's housed, its main address
(08:12):
is in Jacksonville. As we all know, John Moxley is
from Ohio. The events occurred in Michigan. The plaintiff sued
in Michigan. So to go to federal court, you need
to have diversity of citizenship, perhaps a federal question, it's constitutional,
something like the civil rights something of that nature, or
a federal statute, or it's federal enter these federal enclip
(08:36):
and the amount has to be at least a certain amount,
which is easy to you just say that I'm suing
the damages are in excess of X, or you just
pick a number that's way above X. So they didn't
just go for a any federal court. They went to
for Illinois, saying that Beatnick. I think it's also Beatnick LLC,
(08:59):
which is the parent company of AW, is organized in Illinois.
But they sent submit an underseal because they're like, we
don't want to tell you who's in Betnick. And first
of all, why is Beatnick responsible anyway? I mean, you
know there's companies, it's still a separate LLC. You just
own an LLC, you're not automatically responsible for it, you know,
(09:21):
if it's passive investment or a passive oversight. So there's that.
And apparently somewhere along the way, we learned that Beatnik
was owned by two of the cons not Tony, dad
and sister, and that's sort of, you know, been part
of my mockery and others along the way. And on
(09:44):
top of that, it's held by a trust or two trusts.
I mean, we're not exactly sure because it's an LLC,
so it's not public. But you know, that's why I
always say they aw is sort of to keep Tony
away from the real businesses because even you know, when
there's an inheritance, it's likely to go through these trusts,
and it doesn't seem like he's in control of eidel
(10:04):
of those trusts. I don't really know what the trusts say,
but the finding is like, you know, they seem to
be controlled by Shad and the sister, and you know
that likely is to continue at least for one generation anyway,
no speculation on that, but that's the basis for their
seeking jurisdiction in the Illinois Federal Court. And the judge
in Illinois said, no, you need to show us why
(10:26):
there's jurisdiction Illinois. Know you don't get to do it
under seal, and I know you don't get to not
tell us what's going on here, because everybody has a
right to know why. You're saying there's jurisdiction in Illinois
and the court we have a right to know why
there's jurisdiction in Illinois, and the other side they have
a right to respond to it or not. So aw
(10:47):
is appealing that or beat Nickers appealing that someone's appealing it.
But I don't anticipate for the same reason. The appeals
are on a very narrow ground. And Court's absolutely right.
Everyone has a reason they have a right to know
why this is the proper jurisdiction. Actually it's a require.
One of the preemptive defenses is this court does not
(11:08):
have the right jurisdiction both of subject matter and persons.
In this case, it would subject matter certainly, is I
mean it's the subject matter was in Michigan persons is
the issue, and the person is the only person involved
here is a Beatnik LLC, which is a legal person.
So that's what's going on there. I would expect that
(11:28):
that one of two things is going to happen. One
is a w slasp beat Nippey, decide we're not going
to win this thing. Let's just withdraw a motion to
to move to Illinois. Federal court will move to dismiss us,
which the court may or may not allow. They probably will,
and then probably aw will move to move the case
(11:51):
to a different federal court or maybe just like play
out of Michigan, or they'll you know, further appeal the
decision and just sort of string this thing along for
a while. Well even if they, I mean, you have
an increasingly slummer chance ever you appeal up, but you
still have the right to appeal even up to the
Supreme Court potentially, and Supreme Court doesn't have to hear it.
(12:11):
That's called you've probably heard rid of cerciari And that's
when you're asking the court to hear a case and
they deny that plenty of times they deny read plenty,
you know, plenty often. Okay, So that's what's going on
all that. There's been some developments as well in the
mel Phillips the ring Boy case. So so there was
(12:36):
a motion to dismiss by w W E, t K, O, McMahon,
everyone involves saying that this case is no good in Maryland.
First they tried with the statue of limitations thing, but
that didn't work. They said, the statue that eliminates the
statue of limitations that's been deemed constitutional. We talked about
that in prior show, so check out those shows if
you want to hear about that. So now they're saying, hey,
(13:00):
you haven't shown that there's any jurisdiction in Maryland. And
then they have a couple others. One is TKO's defense
to saying, hey, we're TKO where where we're not? We
weren't WWE. We certainly weren't WWF. We weren't involved in
as why are we responsible for any of this? Why
have we and why is there any respond yet superior
(13:21):
or any liabilities attributed to us when we didn't even
know acquire this company in any way, shape or form
until two thousand and three or i'm sorry, twenty twenty
three or whatever it was. But that sounds right, twenty
twenty three. It certainly wasn't a long than twenty twenty two.
Certainly wasn't nineteen eighty two to nineteen ninety something. Whenever
these allegations were made, they also said that mel Phillips
(13:45):
at all times was not an employee of any such
company at the time. He was an independent contract and such.
She was self employed, so they weren't responsible for supervising.
And the ring boys, you know, that was sort of
his own thing, and to an extpt, they were subcontractors.
They were working for him. And so in response, you know,
first to the t KO allegation, the response was, well,
(14:10):
you might be. You still have a duty. And it
was a merger, not an acquisition, so the two companies
became one. It's not like you bought an existing company
and so you're separate. So that that is one argument.
So whenever people say mergers and acquisitions, they are related,
but they're two different different things. You're just in the
same family. It's sort of like judgments and leans. They're
(14:32):
two different things, but they're sort of in the same family,
all right, or an attachment and a lean. Anyway. I
could go on on about that, but that's part of that.
As far as the independent contractor thing, they're saying you
still had a duty to supervise. And by the way,
it was an open secret that in mel Phillips was
you know, you know, it was not good with kids
and then had strange proclivities and he was even dismissed
(14:54):
from the company. So you know, even if he's an
independent contractor, you can't let you're into pint in the
contractor working on your premises on your shows be uh,
you know, unsupervised and and and you know that that's
that's still it may not be negligent employment. It might
not be responding superior as employer, but it's negligent negligent
(15:15):
and contract negligent and supervising your your contractor. You know.
In other words, if you hire a plumber that's a
registered sex offender and your neighbor's kids come over and
play play, you don't get to wipe your hands of it.
It's the plumber does something inappropriate. You know, you you
know what you got into, and then you let the
kids over, so you'll just get to say, hey, he's
(15:38):
the criminal, or you know, or or you're well, I
don't need anymore or is you get that that was
actually a pretty good example or analogy. Another thing that
they're saying is, hey, there's no proof that any of
this happened in Maryland. And what the plaintiffs has have
(16:04):
responded saying is that, well, you did hundreds of shows
in Maryland and you ran even a TV show uh
in Maryland during the times evolved. What I haven't seen
nor heard is any specifics from any of the victims,
the original victims, nor the the eight new victims who
(16:24):
are still unidentified who have come forward to actually say, yeah,
I was in Maryland. This happened to me in Maryland.
That might not be adjudicated until the next round. So
I think that discovery will be allowed to go forward.
(16:45):
I don't think the WWE is going to win on
this particular response to the motion swyst. Now, WWE has
about a month to respond to the to the to
the response motion asking for the court to deny the
motion to dismiss. So ww can file what's called a
(17:07):
serve response, and I'm sure that they will. My guess
is that there will then be a further serve response.
My further guess is that unless there's something really crippling
a very objective. The court will allow this case to
proceed to discovery. Now, depending on what discovery shows atk
(17:29):
or may show that they did not inherit any liabilities
and that they shouldn't be involved and they can get out.
I don't really know what the practical import of that
would be, in that it's a merged company. They I mean,
I know that they more than double their assets between
UFC and WWE, But I mean, it's not going to
(17:52):
be a twenty three billion dollar case. It just I mean, well,
I don't think it well. I mean, anyway, if it was,
that would be appealed for the ten years following. I
think there'll also be a lot of discovery where these
victims will have to identify actual incidents in Maryland where
(18:13):
they were victimized. So not just that they were in
Maryland during the times in question, but they were in
Maryland and victimized. That it wasn't just passing through, or
that Maryland happens to be the places that they nothing
ever happened to them, or maybe they weren't even Maryland.
So it's not enough that WWE did shows here. It's
not even enough that even they were here or mel
Phillips was there, that mel Phillips had to do something
(18:37):
bad to them while in Maryland. So Discovery we'll have
to show that the independent contractor thing will probably be
issued too. But that one I no that I don't
think that one's going to move any mountains. So anyway,
we're still very much in the procedural, but we're getting
a little bit closer to the substance of the procedure
(18:58):
establishing jurisdiction in correct places and some underlying facts that
it would be used later in the substance of the matter.
But some substance to support the procedure, which is not
dissimilar to the thing with Moxley, Michigan and Illinois though
that is really the substance of ownership to establish jurisdiction.
(19:22):
So that really is just more details on procedure. But
for those people talking about this is going to tell
us that Dave Meltz has a share of AW or
Warner Bros. Discovery is a share of A No, it's not.
This is not about aw's ownership. This is about the
ownership of Beatnick and possibly those trusts who are the
grant hours or set lowres of those trusts. But it's
(19:45):
more about Beatnick than it is AW. Now, maybe there's
more to it, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
I don't so. Now, if the case proceeds to litigation
and discovery, will absolutely find out that that type of
inf mason, whoever owns has ownership stakes in AW. That's
all going to be fair game. I'm sure there will
be emotions trying to protect that put the under seal
(20:08):
as well. By the way, what aw's response to the
federal judge was is they thought they'd be the victim
of some sort of fraud or whatever, and the Court's like, no, Now,
the court's are public. And if you expect to meet
some bare minimum to get into this court, which is
to establish the discord has jurisdiction, well we can't see
any reason why we do. You need to show us why.
(20:29):
So anyway, I don't even know if Beating It itself
is organized in Illinois. It might be, but again that's
not enough when it's it's a parent company, but seemingly
and from all public statements, has no you know, impact
control or active ownership. All right, I'm going backwards inside
of forwards. Now, so let's move on to forwards. So
(20:55):
I want to talk a little bit about Hulk Hogan
and none of the other stuff that people have been
talking about before. I issued one tweet on it. If
you want to see it, go ahead. It's not a
particularly sexy tweet. I I don't know why I think this,
but I just feel like hul Cogan is one of
(21:17):
those guys who really did think he was going to
live forever, and I'm a feeling he didn't do a
very thorough estate plan. I think Jimmy Hart is really
as manager and hopefully that steered him in the right direction,
but he seemed to like make a lot of bad
turns along the way. And I don't know this, This
is rank speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's
(21:39):
not in the inn a state battle. And while Linda
is divorced, we don't know the terms of that. Divorce.
Usually divorce ends all rights or the or the continuing
rights of a spouse or an x spouse are written
in stone. I still think that you'll manufacture something or
(22:00):
did they kick the can and say we're going we'll
work these things out later and they just never work
them out, which maybe maybe why she's so agree. I
don't know. There's other fun stuff too. So there's the
new wife's guy, and then there's the kids. I shouldn't
call it fun stuff. And again its tryank speculation, but
I have a feeling that the estate is not in
great order. Now we all know hul Cogan's very wealthy,
(22:24):
but remember the time of the Gawker suit Peter Tile
who financed the whole thing because he had an issue
with Gawker. Peter Til is a really interesting guy and
you should look into him. But he famously said that
that single digit millionaires have no have no chance against
(22:45):
the institutional media. That was sort of was saying is
that he wanted to go against the media. And so
by implication, that means hul Cogan was a single digit millionaire.
Now is that nine point nine million dollars or is
it one point two or whatever? But whatever it is,
I think if somebody asked you in twenty fourteen, how
much is Hulko can work worse, people will probably tell
you somewhere between twenty million and hundred million dollars and
(23:07):
no one could call you unreasonable. Well, he was very
well off, but you know, by any reasonable standards, but
not rich Trichrich tri Trich rich Guy standards. It's certainly
not by Peter Thiels. But after the Gawker case and
they went into bankruptcy instead of you know, fighting, you know,
for the First Amendment rights, which in wrestling, Hogan's legacy
(23:28):
is what it is. And again I'm not going to
go into that. There's obviously two separate and divergent ones.
But in the annals of the law, his greatest legacy
might be the Gawker case in that it sort of
showed that the First Amendment has some problems in it
(23:48):
if you have a really wealthy plaintiff who's willing to
finance cases even if they're not that strong, just to
prove a point and take it to appeals levels to
meet the the media and the corporate conglomerates dollar for
dollar on it. Because that that's what ultimately helpened. He
(24:11):
sued them into bankruptcy there like that, He's going to
keep on fighting us, you know, at some point maybe
their insurance ran out or whatever the case. But and
Hulk Hogan did get like thirty one million dollars out
of out of that. Now Teal got his money back,
which I think was around ten million dollars, and you know,
but whatever he still ended up with. Butt's let's round
it down too much because I'm concernable. It's fifteen million dollars.
(24:34):
So if he was a single digit million theaire, let's
just say it was seven and a half million, then
he got fifteen. Now he's a twenty two and a
half million dollar million there, So hey, not so bad, right,
So so rank speculation that there might be some estate
issues a bruin. If Hulk had a solid estate plan,
(24:57):
I'll be pleasantly surprised, not because I'm a Hulk fan
or anything, just because you should. I mean, it's responsible.
Everyone should have in a state plan. Actually, I mean
even the less you have, the more important is to
protect what you have and to make sure it goes
where you wanted to go. But if he was just
sort of like an overgrown teenager, you know, so a
boom went his way through life and thinking that you know,
(25:19):
he could always take care of things tomorrow, you know,
worry more about you know, doing commercials against sponsorships or
we're still having one last match at seventy I don't know,
maybe never got around to a state planning. So that's
my rank punditary. But my non rank punditry is that
in legal jargon, that the Gawker case really influence things.
(25:39):
It may have been one of the reasons why Dominion
felt empowered to sue Fox News. It may be the
reason why Emmanuel and McCrone and his wife are suing
Oh my god, her name escapes mcandas owns. It may
be why Alex Jones's case cases went so badly from
I'm not a ready about chronology. It might buy be
(26:01):
why this this cio ceo who got caught on camera
Coldplay is suing Coldplay over that, which is funny because
I mean, there's a stadium and he's in public, and
you know all of that, But what's the company he
was ceo? The thing it's called Atmospheres or something like that.
(26:21):
The only other day Anyway, the the victory, despite the
logistics of and the economics of why the victory was
a victory, may have spurred some of these things on
and and may have caused a little bit less freedom
and a little bit more reluctance on the part of
(26:42):
media institutions. Just maybe you think it is a good thing,
but I, for one don't think it's a great thing
that that you know, ABC News and CBS News, you know,
uh sell with to Trump administration, not politics, just because
if they reporting news, the First Amendment sure protected. And
then the the counter to that is that you get
your side of the story out, you know, to other media.
(27:03):
I don't know what's gonna happen though the Wall Street
Journal case, but you know, again, same rule apply, you know,
so you know, if they mount to successful defense, maybe
the pendulum will start to shift a little bit. But
I would, I dare say that the Gawker case was
the first case with a public figure against the media.
When I mean, remember Alex Jones was the public figure,
(27:25):
he wasn't the plaintiff, so it's a little bit different,
so that that may be. That may be his legal
legacy is the the Gawker case. Anyway, I guess that's
speculation but not punditry. But it's more like an opinion. Anyway.
I hope it's interesting to you. Hope this wasn't too weedy.
Thank you all for checking it out. If you like
(27:48):
listening to me, but usually with a guest, subscribe to
Garden of Thought. You'll generally get two to three shows
a week, a little bit like Rogan but less less browie,
less embraceive conspiracy, certainly less successful, but a lot of variety.
And also my wrestling the Jason Show called The Gospel
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(28:08):
the first half of the shows was with the Book
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in wrestling, but oftentimes not about wrestling things, but wrestling
always comes up to and then of course right here
on the Wrestling Soup Network, in addistance to the Body
Slam Briefs Archives, which is probably ten deep, there's the
LFG Review Show, which I have the privilege of co
hosting with the legendary LuFisto. And on the Wrestling Soup
(28:29):
and Friendos Feed the Dose of Chocolate, which is the
only Evolve review show on Earth that I'm aware, but
certainly the best, and my co host typically why Chocolate,
But he's on the Men now his normal tag team
partner has spelled him something that's Don Reynolds, so thank
you to him. And Marie Shadows has been helping and
has helped blend Don Katt, so thank you to Marie
(28:52):
Shadows from the Squared Circle podcast as well as her
other many fine works. So yeah, that's a better for me.
If you want to follow me on the actually can
find me at Dose, Underscore Evil or at Chars l
m D. Happy to uh follow back and conversion.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
So yeah, like a love, follow wrestling on Twitter at
wrestling soup, like and sibsco. Question used to wrestling soup
on YouTube, Apple, Amazon, I hardly read.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Spotted Star.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Sh mm hmmm.
Tells and chaders in the cause.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
In this legal made slam the gavel feel attention of
wrestling true through a web of blood, body slam breeze,
hit landors and I never before.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Violent losses, settle scull, body.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Slam bree ingredients. Everyone it is evil, dose or dose
evil doesn't much matter in this case. It's Jeff Lippman,
the diabolical in house general counsel for the Wrestling Soup Network,
and this is a.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Somewhat delayed body slam briefs not really so much. There's
a lot of little stuff and a little bit of congect.
Sure that's going to happen today. I wasn't really motivated
to do a show for a while, but then I
got the I talked.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
To miss and the last show that did with the
conversation with him did really well, so I'm hoping that
that will do well. Now. It did really well by
my standards. Whether it did well by super standards, I
don't know, but you know, I guess I'm testing whether
or not that's because of my co star there, my
(01:29):
my conversationalists Anthony Misharry Thomas, or that people just gravitate
towards that show. But even if it was because of him,
I'm also saying, if maybe some of you come back anyway,
this content probably isn't convincing to do any of that.
So there's a bunch of legal things that they've come
(01:50):
to fruition or happen lately. None of that's probably as
juicy as anybody wants, but nevertheless, so we're going to
start with, in no particular order, the Kevin Kelly Kate
Twins' case against AW, which was removed to the Florida
(02:11):
Federal Court. AW filed a motion to remove to arbitration.
That motion was granted. Remember I've spoken a million times,
probably with not a lot of popularity or fanfare, regarding
the Grant case, which is still going on. That arbitration
is nearly undefeated. I think in wrestling cases it's I mean,
(02:35):
I'm sure these cases have settled somewhere that didn't make
it to the public records. But I think maybe one
case overcame arbitration and might have been I think raven,
but I'm not even sure about that anyway. But the
plaintiff's team, which includes Stephen Pinu, has appealed that decision,
So that appeal is still pending talked. To win an appeal,
(02:58):
you've got to show that there were some sort of
era of law or abusive discretion below, which is hard
to do in any corporate It's even harder to do
in a federal court. I know Stephen will fight the
good fight, and for a lot of reasons, I'm rooting
for him and for that case to go forward. But
at this point it's still in arbitration. Dince McMahon got
(03:24):
into a car accident. Got into a car accident, sort
of bizarrely, the same day hul Cogan passed. M'd have
been within a couple hours of Hogan's passing. I don't
know if it was after and Vince was driving that
way because he was upset. It seems like he was
in northern Connecticut, going to likely to a ferry or
some causeway to get to Martha's vineyard. Anyway, he was
(03:45):
weaving in an out of traffic. Apparently a state trooper
on Mark Carr, was following him, not as an escort,
but as Faye would have it, the state trooper initiated
a traffic stop what seems to be about two seconds
too late, because as Vince was weaving in dropping eighty
or ninety miles an hour, and he was side of
(04:06):
a reckless driving by the way, he veered into another
car he did try to avoid. The collision wasn't successful,
no serious injuries, but I guarantee you that the victim
of a woman who posts on social media that day,
I wouldn't be surprised if that lawsuit house has already
(04:27):
been filed. Probably also naming whatever the police agency is
and whatever municipality they're from, if it's Connecticut Highway Patrol
or state troopers, probably a state of Connecticut as well,
for not acting fast enough. Also strangely enough, in what
seems to be a bizarre coincidence, the impact was so
substantial and there was debris all over the place that
(04:50):
some debris actually crossed over the median into the opposite
direction of traffic, hit another vehicle, which happens to likely
be a vehicle of a WWE employee, but probably just
going to work. There's no reason to believe that they
were or could have even possibly been in any way,
(05:10):
shape or form related. So anyway, that's unverified as just
comes from a post I read online. I think it was.
If it's wrong, was Brandon Thurston's fault because I think
he posted it on X. Anyway, so Vince was sided
with reckless driving, which here in Maryland it's it's like
(05:32):
a speeding ticket on steroids. But in law of states
it's a misdemeanor or a misdemeanor which could potentially carry
jail time. Technically, any graphic citation is some sort of
a misdemeanor. But this I'm not really sure what this is.
But Vince has a court date in about a month.
In any event, again he's likely to have another lawsuit,
(05:54):
and you know, don't, like I said, don't be surprised
if the law enforcement agency and they're governing body isn't
named as well, and all of a sudden, the injuries will
probably be worse than including the injuries. Apparently there was
a dog in the car, so the dog was reported
as being okay. But you know, I guess dogs can
get you know, back paying that pain and paw pain
(06:19):
and other things can set in later on. Anyway, not
to make life light of that, that's true. I mean
a lot of times, you know, shock adrenaline, a lot
of times your your whiplash and other kinds of soft
tissue injury doesn't present until the day after or sometimes
even others more more more serious, especially the tank of
(06:41):
a Mercedes going at that high rate of speed. Back
when I was a successful person, I had a couple
of Mercedes in a row, and they are sturdy, sturdy vehicles,
all right. So that's that. On the John Moxley case,
remember this is the one in the town. It's like
two months old. John Moxley apparently bumped into a shove
(07:05):
day cameraman. There was a subcontractor independent contractor talent that
or you know, extra crew members at AW and other
companies have used the mission. I covered this at great depth,
so if you want to hear about all the ins
and outs of that, listen to that past Buddy Slam brief.
But what AW did is they filed a motion to
(07:28):
remove this from Michigan State Court to federal court in Illinois. Now,
mind you, there's a federal court. I'm pretty sure in
every single state. Now at the appellate level or the
second appellate level, there's usually a number of states that
are covered by that level. But that's so that's why
you get this like the thirteenth District Cord or the
(07:50):
ninth district court. That's not this. This is this is
the trial level court. Every state has a federal court.
So there's there there's a federal court in Michigan, and
so AW. So apparently AW is incorporated or LLC is
organized in Delaware. It domesticated, it's housed, its main address
(08:12):
is in Jacksonville. As we all know, John Moxley is
from Ohio. The events occurred in Michigan. The plaintiff sued
in Michigan. So to go to federal court, you need
to have diversity of citizenship, perhaps a federal question, it's constitutional,
something like the civil rights something of that nature, or
a federal statute, or it's federal enter these federal enclip
(08:36):
and the amount has to be at least a certain amount,
which is easy to you just say that I'm suing
the damages are in excess of X, or you just
pick a number that's way above X. So they didn't
just go for a any federal court. They went to
for Illinois, saying that Beatnick. I think it's also Beatnick LLC,
(08:59):
which is the parent company of AW, is organized in Illinois.
But they sent submit an underseal because they're like, we
don't want to tell you who's in Betnick. And first
of all, why is Beatnick responsible anyway? I mean, you
know there's companies, it's still a separate LLC. You just
own an LLC, you're not automatically responsible for it, you know,
(09:21):
if it's passive investment or a passive oversight. So there's that.
And apparently somewhere along the way, we learned that Beatnik
was owned by two of the cons not Tony, dad
and sister, and that's sort of, you know, been part
of my mockery and others along the way. And on
(09:44):
top of that, it's held by a trust or two trusts.
I mean, we're not exactly sure because it's an LLC,
so it's not public. But you know, that's why I
always say they aw is sort of to keep Tony
away from the real businesses because even you know, when
there's an inheritance, it's likely to go through these trusts,
and it doesn't seem like he's in control of eidel
(10:04):
of those trusts. I don't really know what the trusts say,
but the finding is like, you know, they seem to
be controlled by Shad and the sister, and you know
that likely is to continue at least for one generation anyway,
no speculation on that, but that's the basis for their
seeking jurisdiction in the Illinois Federal Court. And the judge
in Illinois said, no, you need to show us why
(10:26):
there's jurisdiction Illinois. Know you don't get to do it
under seal, and I know you don't get to not
tell us what's going on here, because everybody has a
right to know why. You're saying there's jurisdiction in Illinois
and the court we have a right to know why
there's jurisdiction in Illinois, and the other side they have
a right to respond to it or not. So aw
(10:47):
is appealing that or beat Nickers appealing that someone's appealing it.
But I don't anticipate for the same reason. The appeals
are on a very narrow ground. And Court's absolutely right.
Everyone has a reason they have a right to know
why this is the proper jurisdiction. Actually it's a require.
One of the preemptive defenses is this court does not
(11:08):
have the right jurisdiction both of subject matter and persons.
In this case, it would subject matter certainly, is I
mean it's the subject matter was in Michigan persons is
the issue, and the person is the only person involved
here is a Beatnik LLC, which is a legal person.
So that's what's going on there. I would expect that
(11:28):
that one of two things is going to happen. One
is a w slasp beat Nippey, decide we're not going
to win this thing. Let's just withdraw a motion to
to move to Illinois. Federal court will move to dismiss us,
which the court may or may not allow. They probably will,
and then probably aw will move to move the case
(11:51):
to a different federal court or maybe just like play
out of Michigan, or they'll you know, further appeal the
decision and just sort of string this thing along for
a while. Well even if they, I mean, you have
an increasingly slummer chance ever you appeal up, but you
still have the right to appeal even up to the
Supreme Court potentially, and Supreme Court doesn't have to hear it.
(12:11):
That's called you've probably heard rid of cerciari And that's
when you're asking the court to hear a case and
they deny that plenty of times they deny read plenty,
you know, plenty often. Okay, So that's what's going on
all that. There's been some developments as well in the
mel Phillips the ring Boy case. So so there was
(12:36):
a motion to dismiss by w W E, t K, O, McMahon,
everyone involves saying that this case is no good in Maryland.
First they tried with the statue of limitations thing, but
that didn't work. They said, the statue that eliminates the
statue of limitations that's been deemed constitutional. We talked about
that in prior show, so check out those shows if
you want to hear about that. So now they're saying, hey,
(13:00):
you haven't shown that there's any jurisdiction in Maryland. And
then they have a couple others. One is TKO's defense
to saying, hey, we're TKO where where we're not? We
weren't WWE. We certainly weren't WWF. We weren't involved in
as why are we responsible for any of this? Why
have we and why is there any respond yet superior
(13:21):
or any liabilities attributed to us when we didn't even
know acquire this company in any way, shape or form
until two thousand and three or i'm sorry, twenty twenty
three or whatever it was. But that sounds right, twenty
twenty three. It certainly wasn't a long than twenty twenty two.
Certainly wasn't nineteen eighty two to nineteen ninety something. Whenever
these allegations were made, they also said that mel Phillips
(13:45):
at all times was not an employee of any such
company at the time. He was an independent contract and such.
She was self employed, so they weren't responsible for supervising.
And the ring boys, you know, that was sort of
his own thing, and to an extpt, they were subcontractors.
They were working for him. And so in response, you know,
first to the t KO allegation, the response was, well,
(14:10):
you might be. You still have a duty. And it
was a merger, not an acquisition, so the two companies
became one. It's not like you bought an existing company
and so you're separate. So that that is one argument.
So whenever people say mergers and acquisitions, they are related,
but they're two different different things. You're just in the
same family. It's sort of like judgments and leans. They're
(14:32):
two different things, but they're sort of in the same family,
all right, or an attachment and a lean. Anyway. I
could go on on about that, but that's part of that.
As far as the independent contractor thing, they're saying you
still had a duty to supervise. And by the way,
it was an open secret that in mel Phillips was
you know, you know, it was not good with kids
and then had strange proclivities and he was even dismissed
(14:54):
from the company. So you know, even if he's an
independent contractor, you can't let you're into pint in the
contractor working on your premises on your shows be uh,
you know, unsupervised and and and you know that that's
that's still it may not be negligent employment. It might
not be responding superior as employer, but it's negligent negligent
(15:15):
and contract negligent and supervising your your contractor. You know.
In other words, if you hire a plumber that's a
registered sex offender and your neighbor's kids come over and
play play, you don't get to wipe your hands of it.
It's the plumber does something inappropriate. You know, you you
know what you got into, and then you let the
kids over, so you'll just get to say, hey, he's
(15:38):
the criminal, or you know, or or you're well, I
don't need anymore or is you get that that was
actually a pretty good example or analogy. Another thing that
they're saying is, hey, there's no proof that any of
this happened in Maryland. And what the plaintiffs has have
(16:04):
responded saying is that, well, you did hundreds of shows
in Maryland and you ran even a TV show uh
in Maryland during the times evolved. What I haven't seen
nor heard is any specifics from any of the victims,
the original victims, nor the the eight new victims who
(16:24):
are still unidentified who have come forward to actually say, yeah,
I was in Maryland. This happened to me in Maryland.
That might not be adjudicated until the next round. So
I think that discovery will be allowed to go forward.
(16:45):
I don't think the WWE is going to win on
this particular response to the motion swyst. Now, WWE has
about a month to respond to the to the to
the response motion asking for the court to deny the
motion to dismiss. So ww can file what's called a
(17:07):
serve response, and I'm sure that they will. My guess
is that there will then be a further serve response.
My further guess is that unless there's something really crippling
a very objective. The court will allow this case to
proceed to discovery. Now, depending on what discovery shows atk
(17:29):
or may show that they did not inherit any liabilities
and that they shouldn't be involved and they can get out.
I don't really know what the practical import of that
would be, in that it's a merged company. They I mean,
I know that they more than double their assets between
UFC and WWE, But I mean, it's not going to
(17:52):
be a twenty three billion dollar case. It just I mean, well,
I don't think it well. I mean, anyway, if it was,
that would be appealed for the ten years following. I
think there'll also be a lot of discovery where these
victims will have to identify actual incidents in Maryland where
(18:13):
they were victimized. So not just that they were in
Maryland during the times in question, but they were in
Maryland and victimized. That it wasn't just passing through, or
that Maryland happens to be the places that they nothing
ever happened to them, or maybe they weren't even Maryland.
So it's not enough that WWE did shows here. It's
not even enough that even they were here or mel
Phillips was there, that mel Phillips had to do something
(18:37):
bad to them while in Maryland. So Discovery we'll have
to show that the independent contractor thing will probably be
issued too. But that one I no that I don't
think that one's going to move any mountains. So anyway,
we're still very much in the procedural, but we're getting
a little bit closer to the substance of the procedure
(18:58):
establishing jurisdiction in correct places and some underlying facts that
it would be used later in the substance of the matter.
But some substance to support the procedure, which is not
dissimilar to the thing with Moxley, Michigan and Illinois though
that is really the substance of ownership to establish jurisdiction.
(19:22):
So that really is just more details on procedure. But
for those people talking about this is going to tell
us that Dave Meltz has a share of AW or
Warner Bros. Discovery is a share of A No, it's not.
This is not about aw's ownership. This is about the
ownership of Beatnick and possibly those trusts who are the
grant hours or set lowres of those trusts. But it's
(19:45):
more about Beatnick than it is AW. Now, maybe there's
more to it, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
I don't so. Now, if the case proceeds to litigation
and discovery, will absolutely find out that that type of
inf mason, whoever owns has ownership stakes in AW. That's
all going to be fair game. I'm sure there will
be emotions trying to protect that put the under seal
(20:08):
as well. By the way, what aw's response to the
federal judge was is they thought they'd be the victim
of some sort of fraud or whatever, and the Court's like, no, Now,
the court's are public. And if you expect to meet
some bare minimum to get into this court, which is
to establish the discord has jurisdiction, well we can't see
any reason why we do. You need to show us why.
(20:29):
So anyway, I don't even know if Beating It itself
is organized in Illinois. It might be, but again that's
not enough when it's it's a parent company, but seemingly
and from all public statements, has no you know, impact
control or active ownership. All right, I'm going backwards inside
of forwards. Now, so let's move on to forwards. So
(20:55):
I want to talk a little bit about Hulk Hogan
and none of the other stuff that people have been
talking about before. I issued one tweet on it. If
you want to see it, go ahead. It's not a
particularly sexy tweet. I I don't know why I think this,
but I just feel like hul Cogan is one of
(21:17):
those guys who really did think he was going to
live forever, and I'm a feeling he didn't do a
very thorough estate plan. I think Jimmy Hart is really
as manager and hopefully that steered him in the right direction,
but he seemed to like make a lot of bad
turns along the way. And I don't know this, This
is rank speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's
(21:39):
not in the inn a state battle. And while Linda
is divorced, we don't know the terms of that. Divorce.
Usually divorce ends all rights or the or the continuing
rights of a spouse or an x spouse are written
in stone. I still think that you'll manufacture something or
(22:00):
did they kick the can and say we're going we'll
work these things out later and they just never work
them out, which maybe maybe why she's so agree. I
don't know. There's other fun stuff too. So there's the
new wife's guy, and then there's the kids. I shouldn't
call it fun stuff. And again its tryank speculation, but
I have a feeling that the estate is not in
great order. Now we all know hul Cogan's very wealthy,
(22:24):
but remember the time of the Gawker suit Peter Tile
who financed the whole thing because he had an issue
with Gawker. Peter Til is a really interesting guy and
you should look into him. But he famously said that
that single digit millionaires have no have no chance against
(22:45):
the institutional media. That was sort of was saying is
that he wanted to go against the media. And so
by implication, that means hul Cogan was a single digit millionaire.
Now is that nine point nine million dollars or is
it one point two or whatever? But whatever it is,
I think if somebody asked you in twenty fourteen, how
much is Hulko can work worse, people will probably tell
you somewhere between twenty million and hundred million dollars and
(23:07):
no one could call you unreasonable. Well, he was very
well off, but you know, by any reasonable standards, but
not rich Trichrich tri Trich rich Guy standards. It's certainly
not by Peter Thiels. But after the Gawker case and
they went into bankruptcy instead of you know, fighting, you know,
for the First Amendment rights, which in wrestling, Hogan's legacy
(23:28):
is what it is. And again I'm not going to
go into that. There's obviously two separate and divergent ones.
But in the annals of the law, his greatest legacy
might be the Gawker case in that it sort of
showed that the First Amendment has some problems in it
(23:48):
if you have a really wealthy plaintiff who's willing to
finance cases even if they're not that strong, just to
prove a point and take it to appeals levels to
meet the the media and the corporate conglomerates dollar for
dollar on it. Because that that's what ultimately helpened. He
(24:11):
sued them into bankruptcy there like that, He's going to
keep on fighting us, you know, at some point maybe
their insurance ran out or whatever the case. But and
Hulk Hogan did get like thirty one million dollars out
of out of that. Now Teal got his money back,
which I think was around ten million dollars, and you know,
but whatever he still ended up with. Butt's let's round
it down too much because I'm concernable. It's fifteen million dollars.
(24:34):
So if he was a single digit million theaire, let's
just say it was seven and a half million, then
he got fifteen. Now he's a twenty two and a
half million dollar million there, So hey, not so bad, right,
So so rank speculation that there might be some estate
issues a bruin. If Hulk had a solid estate plan,
(24:57):
I'll be pleasantly surprised, not because I'm a Hulk fan
or anything, just because you should. I mean, it's responsible.
Everyone should have in a state plan. Actually, I mean
even the less you have, the more important is to
protect what you have and to make sure it goes
where you wanted to go. But if he was just
sort of like an overgrown teenager, you know, so a
boom went his way through life and thinking that you know,
(25:19):
he could always take care of things tomorrow, you know,
worry more about you know, doing commercials against sponsorships or
we're still having one last match at seventy I don't know,
maybe never got around to a state planning. So that's
my rank punditary. But my non rank punditry is that
in legal jargon, that the Gawker case really influence things.
(25:39):
It may have been one of the reasons why Dominion
felt empowered to sue Fox News. It may be the
reason why Emmanuel and McCrone and his wife are suing
Oh my god, her name escapes mcandas owns. It may
be why Alex Jones's case cases went so badly from
I'm not a ready about chronology. It might buy be
(26:01):
why this this cio ceo who got caught on camera
Coldplay is suing Coldplay over that, which is funny because
I mean, there's a stadium and he's in public, and
you know all of that, But what's the company he
was ceo? The thing it's called Atmospheres or something like that.
(26:21):
The only other day Anyway, the the victory, despite the
logistics of and the economics of why the victory was
a victory, may have spurred some of these things on
and and may have caused a little bit less freedom
and a little bit more reluctance on the part of
(26:42):
media institutions. Just maybe you think it is a good thing,
but I, for one don't think it's a great thing
that that you know, ABC News and CBS News, you know,
uh sell with to Trump administration, not politics, just because
if they reporting news, the First Amendment sure protected. And
then the the counter to that is that you get
your side of the story out, you know, to other media.
(27:03):
I don't know what's gonna happen though the Wall Street
Journal case, but you know, again, same rule apply, you know,
so you know, if they mount to successful defense, maybe
the pendulum will start to shift a little bit. But
I would, I dare say that the Gawker case was
the first case with a public figure against the media.
When I mean, remember Alex Jones was the public figure,
(27:25):
he wasn't the plaintiff, so it's a little bit different,
so that that may be. That may be his legal
legacy is the the Gawker case. Anyway, I guess that's
speculation but not punditry. But it's more like an opinion. Anyway.
I hope it's interesting to you. Hope this wasn't too weedy.
Thank you all for checking it out. If you like
(27:48):
listening to me, but usually with a guest, subscribe to
Garden of Thought. You'll generally get two to three shows
a week, a little bit like Rogan but less less browie,
less embraceive conspiracy, certainly less successful, but a lot of variety.
And also my wrestling the Jason Show called The Gospel
of Thomas, where my co host is mister Thomas, though
(28:08):
the first half of the shows was with the Book
of Black with PJ. Black, and we talked to people
in wrestling, but oftentimes not about wrestling things, but wrestling
always comes up to and then of course right here
on the Wrestling Soup Network, in addistance to the Body
Slam Briefs Archives, which is probably ten deep, there's the
LFG Review Show, which I have the privilege of co
hosting with the legendary LuFisto. And on the Wrestling Soup
(28:29):
and Friendos Feed the Dose of Chocolate, which is the
only Evolve review show on Earth that I'm aware, but
certainly the best, and my co host typically why Chocolate,
But he's on the Men now his normal tag team
partner has spelled him something that's Don Reynolds, so thank
you to him. And Marie Shadows has been helping and
has helped blend Don Katt, so thank you to Marie
(28:52):
Shadows from the Squared Circle podcast as well as her
other many fine works. So yeah, that's a better for me.
If you want to follow me on the actually can
find me at Dose, Underscore Evil or at Chars l
m D. Happy to uh follow back and conversion.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
So yeah, like a love, follow wrestling on Twitter at
wrestling soup, like and sibsco. Question used to wrestling soup
on YouTube, Apple, Amazon, I hardly read.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Spotted Star.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Sh mm hmmm.
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