He addressed the suit and Jim Ross.
There was a lawsuit filed against All Elite Wrestling by commentator Kevin Kelly and talents Brent Tate and Brandon Tate for breach of contract and defamation.
The suit was filed this week in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Trial Division. Representing Kelly and the Tate Twins is attorney Stephen P. New. He spoke about the lawsuit while appearing on House Of Kayfabe. He revealed that Kelly’s AEW contract was for three years.
(Kevin) Kelly perceived being treated differently by AEW, by H.R., by the people in the home office after this dustup with (Ian) Riccaboni and then resulting in that first week of March being let go, by AEW. Only about nine months into a three-year long contract.
He went on to bring up that Kelly is often called a QAnon member on social media, which stems from fellow commentator Ian Riccaboni posting that Kelly was promoting QAnon movies. Riccaboni added that Kelly’s name was always in the mix, but the ‘QAnon stuff breaks my heart a little bit.’
New states that social media comments from those who have referred to Kevin as that, because of Ian’s comments, can be leaned on by experts in court.
Just look at some of the things said about Kevin Kelly today, in response to this lawsuit. He was called a conspiracy theorist and a QAnon quack, just by virtue of the fact of him being trending on Twitter and being the headline in this lawsuit and the named plaintiff in this lawsuit. People still believe that stuff so, one of the things that makes the defamation claim a little tougher is the actual malice. There can probably be a pretty straight-faced argument that these plaintiffs are public figures, they wrestle on national television, cable television. So they can at least make that straight-faced argument because in addition to the four things that you have to prove with defamation about the publication of a knowingly false statement and making it nonetheless, in the case of a public figure, you have to show that the act was done with actual malice, and that’s where Riccaboni trying to knife a competitor in the back for an announcing job. We might just be able to get there on that one.
Yep. Yes (a lot of the comments being made about Kevin Kelly probably will end up as evidence). When my reputation expert finds the tweets in the wake of the filing of this lawsuit, yeah. Yeah. He’ll be able to say, well, see. See here. People believed a lot of what Riccaboni was saying in the fall of 2023 because people are still talking about it in fall of 2024.
Well, the tweets themselves would not be (used as evidence), but the Rules of Evidence say experts can rely on things that aren’t, in and of themselves, admissible. So long as there is a scientific basis to it and that’s part of the process of getting that expert through the door so that that expert can say certain things like, see here, I’ve analyzed the number of shares on social media with this person’s name and it has a negative connotation to it. You know, 87 percent of what you read on the internet about that person since someone said the allegedly defamatory thing has been negative and so, there is a scientific method to it that’s employed by the experts. It’s not just me standing up there with a flipboard of, you know, Beavis-and-Butthead-rock-number-one at Twitter.com or whatever. @BeavisandButtheadRock on Twitter and it’s not just me standing up there and saying that or showing the tweets. It has to be some scientific method to the reputation expert opining about that.
To close, P. New responded to Jim Ross calling the lawsuit frivolous. He stated that he might lose the case, but the lawsuit is not frivolous.
I need to make a response. J.R., Jim Ross called this lawsuit frivolous. Well, let me tell you something, boola-boola, this is not a frivolous lawsuit. You’re part of the problem. You, Jim Ross, are part of the problem because you fed the guys in WWE, as Talent Relations, these crap contracts for a quarter of a century. You told these guys that it was the take it or leave it deal and that they needed to sign these crap contracts that were contracts of adhesion, that they should’ve never have signed or they should have lined the arbitration provisions out of so, I’m not shocked in the least that you go on Conrad Thompson’s podcast and you say that this is a frivolous lawsuit. I might lose it, but bah gawd! It’s not frivolous. I can tell you that.
Tony Khan’s paid J.R. a lot of money to do nothing, for about five years now, and so, if I were Jim Ross and I were living at Jacksonville Beach and making a bunch of money to not do much at all, I’d probably come out and call Stephen P. New’s lawsuit frivolous also. Everybody’s got a price.
Kevin Kelly spoke about a severance package that AEW sent him, but said they took it back when he did not sign ‘some form.’ To read more, click here.
Kelly has also spoken in-depth about his exit from AEW and issues with Ian Riccaboni. That article can be found at this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit House Of Kayfabe with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
