Vince McMahon (R), the chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Inc., hold a plaque as he poses with the WWE star Triple H after McMahon's Hollywood Walk of Fame star was unveiled. (Photo : REUTERS/Fred Prouser )
The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is fending off a potential class act suit from former players who are seeking compensation for concussion related injuries they sustained during their time with wrestling outfit. Vince McMahon's company is asking a federal judge to drop the case, citing the three-year statute of limitations that prohibit former talents from claims of long-term health maladies arising from concussions absorbed in the ring.
WWE legal representative Jerry McDevitt accused the lawyers of the plaintiffs of capitalizing on the former talents' susceptibility on cashing in big on a lawsuit. He added that the former wrestlers are being exploited by their representatives by following the trajectory of the National Football League (NFL), which is also embroiled in a similar situation.
"Before this guy started trolling around looking for people to sue, we didn't have one person, none, claiming that they had any kind of traumatic brain injuries, or dementia or ALS or any of the kind of stuff you seek associated with the NFL," McDevitt said per The Association Press.
Konstantyne Kyrios, attorney for the former talents, claimed that such is not the case as head injuries brought about by repeated pile drivers and other wrestling maneuvers which primarily target the head can manifest traumatic brain injuries down the line. Kyrios is also being accused by the WWE of improperly looking for potential clients over the internet.
There are already three former wrestlers who have come forward and formally attached themselves to the claim. Retired WWE wrestlers Blackjack Mulligan (Robert Windham), Dynamite Kid (Thomas Billington), Koko B. Ware (James Ware), and Ivan Koloff (Oreal Perras) are just some of the former talents who have enlisted the services of Kyrios. It is still unclear if the prosecution side will be able to add more names to the plaintiffs and convert the claim into a class suit.
The WWE also enlisted five misleading allegations that Kyrios has put forward in his claims, including citing head injuries as the main source of death of a former talent when said wrestler was obese and died of a heart attack, attributing the deafness of a former talent to head injuries when the disability was congenital in nature, falsely stating that a former wrestler was employed for 22 years from 1985 to 2007 when said person was only employed for 2 years and for incorrectly claiming that a former wrestler died from head injuries instead of drug overdose.
