A lawsuit has been filed against AEW.
Kevin Kelly and The Boys (Brendan and Brandon Tate) have filed suit against the company.
Kelly alleges defamation from Ian Riccaboni and AEW, stemming from Riccaboni making comments on a discord channel regarding Kelly being involved with QAnon conspiracies. He is seeking monetary damages claiming AEW breached his contract and that the situation has made it difficult for him to find work elsewhere. Kelly was fired from AEW in March.
The Tate Twins were fired in April. Tony Khan stated publicly that their releases were due to no-showing events, which the brothers later attributed to a miscommunication between them and management after they were booked to fly out of a different airport than they normally use. The claim they no-showed events is at the center of their defamation suit against Khan and AEW.
Kelly and the Tate twins are also requesting the court certify a class-action suit against AEW over the company misclassifying its talent as independent contractors rather than employees.
“I applaud the bravery of these Plaintiffs in bringing this long-overdue action, challenging the mis-classification of pro-wrestlers as independent contractors instead of employees. We know we are in for a long, hard fight, but in the end, I believe justice always prevails,” said attorney Stephen P. New.
The Wrestling News AV was the first to report the news.
BREAKING: Three former talents terminated by the company have brought a lawsuit against All Elite Wrestling, among others. The suit, brought by announcer Kevin Kelly and wrestlers Brandon & Brendan Tate, was filed on August 30 in the Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas by attorneys Stephen P. New & Benjamin Baer, and is seeking to void the arbitration clause of their talent contracts, as well as requesting the court certify a class-action suit against AEW over claims the company is misclassifying its wrestling talent as independent contractors, rather than employees.
“In April, it was reported that the Tate Brothers, known professionally as “the Boys”, were released from their Ring Of Honor contracts due to budget cuts. ROH owner Tony Khan claimed during media events that their release was due to no-showing several events, a claim the brothers deny. That claim is now at the center of the defamation allegation against Khan by the Tate Brothers.”
“Kelly, who joined AEW in June 2023 after working as the English speaking commentator for New Japan, was fired from his position as an AEW play-by-play announcer in March, after he went public on his social media expressing his frustrations with the company and Riccaboni.”
Will update as more is reported.
Edit: Updated URL to F4W.
To be fair, the independent contractor stuff is absolute bullshit.
Beyond fuck, Qevin can do one.
I feel like AEW treats their guys more as independent contractors than WWE does, but it does feel like there’s still a lot of wiggle room there. They probably do overstep the bounds.
Fuck Qevin and all, but if they manage to set a precedent with this, it will be huge.
Oh 100%. Much closer to IC’s than WWE has ever done, but I remember TK told Mox for example that he couldn’t do GCW shows anymore a year or so back so they absolutely overstep still.
wasn’t that more because of the rash of injuries coming out of gcw at the time?
possibly, but injuries or not, the employer in a independent-contractor-relationship has no legal ability to say to him “hey I don’t want you getting injured working for them, so you cant work their shows.” TK saying that to him means Mox can go “lol blow me” and just continue showing up to GCW all he wants without TK being able to do a thing.
Yeah, fuck Kevin, but he and the Tates were smart to chase that and not chase wrongful termination.
Might not help em much, pretty sure WWE was sued for this before and precedent was set that’ll have Kevin shitting his drawers. Plus lots of AEW/ROH wrestlers are allowed to work other companies with little issue which’ll mess his case up further.
I don’t think the independent contractor issue was ever adjucated in court. IIRC, every suit on the matter was either settled out of court or dismissed on a technicality.
Fair enough. Gonna be a shitshow!