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MLW responded to WWE's response to MLW's attempt to shoot down their potential defenses (got all that?) in the latest regarding the MLW lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment before The U.S. District Court California Northern District (San Jose) yesterday.
The filing notes:
Plaintiff MLW Media LLC (“MLW”) was forced to bring this Motion1 because Defendant World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (“WWE”) asserted a number of frivolous and unsupported Affirmative Defenses that “never should have been filed.”
WWE concedes as much by attaching a proposed Amended Answer that strikes the improper Affirmative Defenses that MLW challenged, and repleads those Affirmative Defenses that MLW demonstrated are inadequate.
Indeed, WWE sheepishly attempts to withdraw, without substantively acknowledging, its first, second, fifth, sixth, eighth, and twelfth Affirmative Defenses—which MLW pointed out were patently improper—by striking them in its proposed Amended Answer.
Despite these clear and glaring deficiencies, WWE baselessly accuses MLW of wasting the Court’s time and resources. WWE’s accusation is a textbook example of projection. Rather than assuming responsibility for its insufficient pleading and stipulating to amend its Answer, WWE untenably opposes a straightforward motion that it forced MLW to bring. WWE spends most of its Opposition casting aspersions and engaging in misdirection in an attempt to salvage what remains of its insufficient Affirmative Defenses.
But WWE’s Opposition is most notable for what it omits: it does not argue that its boilerplate pleading satisfies the Twombly/Iqbal standard (because, of course, it does not) and wholly ignores reference to the overwhelming authority from this Court that makes clear that “courts in this district continue to require affirmative defenses meet [that] standard.”
WWE filed a response to the Motion. WWE does not address, much less distinguish, this Court’s opinion in Goobich, but instead spends six pages of its Opposition arguing why this Court is wrong, citing to cases far and wide, including from district courts in Hawaii, Montana, and Washington, all the while ignoring overriding authority from this District.
But no amount of sophistry alters the reality that the heightened pleading standard under Twombly/Iqbal requires a defendant to “include enough supporting information [for its affirmative defenses] to be plausible.”
WWE implicitly concedes that, despite having sixty (60) days to draft its Answer, its boilerplate pleading does not satisfy its legal obligation, and therefore advocates for a “more relaxed pleading standard” applied by certain courts in other districts.
Recognizing that its Affirmative Defenses are insufficient, WWE argues that the Motion should be denied because MLW has not made a showing of prejudice.
However, this Court has no such requirement. Rather, this Court routinely strikes inadequately pleaded and improper affirmative defenses without considering prejudice. And, of course, it is apparent that requiring MLW to engage in costly discovery and argument on patently improper and inadequate affirmative defenses is inherently prejudicial. Because WWE implicitly acknowledges in its proposed Amended Answer that its first, second, fifth, sixth, eighth, and twelfth Affirmative Defenses are improper, and that its remaining Affirmative Defenses are inadequately pleaded, MLW has no objection to this Court granting leave to WWE to amend its Answer, while striking with prejudice the “Reservation of Rights” section and the first, second, fifth, sixth, eighth, and twelfth Affirmative Defenses, as WWE’s proposed Amended Answer concedes all the relief MLW requested in the Motion.
The United States District Court California Northern District (San Jose) has scheduled a motion hearing for the morning of 10/26 regarding this matter.
Back in March 2023, Major League Wrestling filed the amended lawsuit against WWE. That suit, totaling 44 pages with an additional filing breaking down all the changes from the original January 2022 lawsuit filing, had been expanded to include MLW alleging "WWE’s predatory conduct further impeded MLW in its ability to compete in the licensing of its programming for distribution on streaming services and continues to threaten to deprive MLW of its ability to license its programming for distribution on cable. As a result of WWE’s misconduct, MLW is at risk of its business being irreparably destroyed. In February 2023, MLW’s new media partner -- Reelz -- announced a distribution deal with streaming service Peacock. But as a direct result of WWE’s exclusivity arrangement with NBCUniversal, which prohibits any other professional wrestling programming on Peacock, MLW’s programming is excluded from this streaming deal, which further suppresses competition in the Relevant Market. MLW also is reportedly at risk of losing its cable deal with Reelz as a result of WWE’s exclusivity with Peacock."
MLW exited REELZ after 13 episodes, but REELZ later issued a statement to PWInsider.com that the two sides were in discussion about additional "seasons." The belief upon MLW's REELZ debut was that the two sides had agreed to a multi-year deal but upon the announcement of the REELZ-Peacock alliance, the MLW series was downplayed greatly in comparison to its initial weeks on the cable broadcaster. There has been no indication the two sides will resume any sort of relationship as of this writing.
MLW's Amended lawsuit alleged that WWE's exclusivity agreements (such as Peacock and NBC) create violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act as it pertains to the pro wrestling media market in the United States.
MLW has argued since it first filed its first lawsuit that WWE was engaging in unfair practices, including attempting to prevent Ring of Honor (then owned by The Sinclair Broadcast Group) from running Madison Square Garden when allegedly Paul Levesque stepped in to stop it temporarily, that WWE prevented AEW from booking an Arena in Cincinnati several years back and that WWE went after signed MLW talents, including Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Swerve Strickland, neither of whom are currently with WWE.
MLW has also maintained that WWE's Stephanie McMahon interfered with a MLW deal with FOX-owned streaming service Tubi, leading to that deal being canceled the night before it was to be announced and a potential deal with Vice TV, which only aired one original MLW special and several older MLW TV shows. WWE has conceded that McMahon, who has since left the company, did have contact with the Tubi Exec but denied there was any connection to that discussion and MLW's Tubi deal being canceled the day before it was set to be publicly announced.
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