WWF Legal History
This period in 1999 can be labeled as the "lawsuit" period in the WWF.
In fact, McMahon and co. were presented with 3 lawsuits in less than 14 days. Let's go in order: (extract from the Wrestling-Online newsletter no. 349 of the 6/15/99)
"The Hart family filed a lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation, the company who produced the harness and cabling system, stunt coordinator of the night, and owner of the Kemper Arena, among others in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, MO. The lawsuit consisted of 118 pages in length and contained 46 counts against 13 defendants." Sorry guys...due to the respect for the man (Owen) who died while trying to entertain all of us I won't comment on this one. Enough has been said on this story/lawsuit and I don't feel to add any further comments.
Second lawsuit, Sable vs WWF. Let me get
this straight...Sable was suing the WWF for a whooping US$ 110 million. The
lawsuit also contained requests for her to retain the name Sable and profits
from future merchandising of that moniker. So, the same person that few weeks
before appeared on the world's most sold male adult magazine now is feeling
degraded because of an evening gown match where she had to lose the title and
her gown ?! Some days later she changed her requests. She'd settle for a couple
of million bucks, her full release from her WWF contract and the right to use
the name Sable. Draw
your own comments please...
Last but surely not least (in order of stupidity),
Kuwaiti TV presenter Bassam Al Othman suing the WWF for 1 million USD. The lawsuit
revolves basically around the fact that the Federation used extracts from the
incident with Vader (at the TV show he hosted) on their programming without
his permission. One little thing has to be mentioned...the confrontation with
Vader happened in 97!!! Can anyone tell me why the hell he waited two years
before suing them? The guy was either a huge opportunist (trying to ride the
momentum created by the Hart's and Sable's lawsuits) or else he's just too damn
stupid to
realize that he better should be thanking whoever he believes in that Vader
didn't hurt him for real.
Book review of Sex, Lies and the WWF
TIGER ALI SINGH SUES WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT (22nd August 2002)
Nicole Bass to go to trial against WWE on September 16th 2002