Tag: Jerry McDevitt

Wrestling Observer Live: Jerry McDevitt retiring, RAW ratings, AEW Dynamite review, Kota Ibushi

Posted on by Bryan Alvarez

Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including Jerry McDevitt retiring, RAW ratings for Monday night and what spiked the quarters, a full recap of Dynamite from Wednesday night, Kota Ibushi and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!

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WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt ‘working towards retirement,’ no longer on MLW lawsuit

Posted on by Josh Nason

For decades, the name Jerry McDevitt was synonymous with lawsuits and legal issues regarding WWE and Vince McMahon.

Soon, that will not be the case as the longtime WWE defense attorney told Wrestlenomics Wednesday that he is “working towards retirement.”

The impetus for his comment to the media outlet was in response to the latest development in the ongoing MLW/WWE lawsuit which recently saw a U.S. District judge deny WWE’s latest effort to dismiss the case. PWInsider had reported earlier this week that WWE asked for an extension due to seeking new legal counsel for the case.

When asked about the development, McDevitt told Wrestlenomics that he had been working toward retirement since earlier this year and that following the judge’s recent ruling, “it became obvious that the case would run into at least 2025 in all probability, I advised my client that I would be wrapping things up by year-end and that it would make sense for them to secure counsel who can go the distance on the case now that discovery will be starting. There is also the chance that I might be a witness given the allegations. I will be 74 this January and it just seems like the right time to make necessary transitions.”

McDevitt and the K&L Gates law firm are being replaced on the case by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Warton & Garrison LLP. The latter has worked with WWE before, advising them during their decision to merge with Endeavor’s UFC to form their new publicly-traded TKO company that is still awaiting regulatory approval.

McDevitt has worked with WWE and McMahon for nearly 40 years.

“It has been a great 36-year run with a great Company and Vince [McMahon], and I am very proud of all that we accomplished during that time, and I will continue to help them any way I can,” he told Wrestlenomics.

Daily Update: Jerry McDevitt, Don West, Canyon Cemen

Posted on by Bryan Rose

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter: January 17, 2022 Observer Newsletter: 2021 Observer Hall of Fame issue, MLW sues WWE

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TUESDAY NEWS UPDATE

WWE

  • The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a profile on WWE’s longtime lawyer Jerry McDevitt, who said he has considered retirement. “WWE is a major client, but I have other clients” McDevitt said. “I also represented Dr. Cyril Wecht. I’ll be 72 in January, so I’ve been trying to turn it down a little bit as I’m headed into retirement. But because of my longstanding relationship with WWE, I continue to represent them, although I keep telling Vince I do want to retire. Most relationships nowadays with lawyers and publicly traded companies are at the general counsel level. Outside lawyers work with the general counsel of the company and never with the CEO or chairman of the board. But my contact and my relationship is directly with and to Vince. It always has been. It always will be. That’s kind of a unique relationship in the landscape of the law these days for the outside counsel to have that sort of direct relationship.”
  • WWE has trademarked the name “Gunther Stark”. However, it is also the name of a World War II Kapitänleutnant that served in Adolf Hitler’s U-Boat command.
  • Sheamus and Shawn Michaels will be the guests on The Bump this week.
  • Alexa Bliss on Twitter: “Sometimes you need to just be patient & see how things play out…”
  • Shayna Baszler was interviewed by the Argus Leader about her hometown appearance at a WWE house show in Sioux Falls, South Dakota over the weekend.
  • John Cena was a guest on the Drew Barrymore show.
  • Matches added to WWE’s YouTube page today include A 15-man battle royal from the April 13, 2009 episode of Raw, The Great Khali vs. Finlay from the January 18, 2008 episode of SmackDown, and John Cena vs. Rey Mysterio from the November 6, 2003 episode of SmackDown.

AEW

  • This week’s Road to Dynamite: DC, focusing on CM Punk vs. Shawn Spears, The Acclaimed vs. Sting and Darby Allin, and Serena Deeb vs. Skye Blue.
  • Forbes has a profile on Aubrey Edwards, highlighting her work in the AEW games as well as being a referee.
  • Chris Jericho has trademarked the term “GFY”, a term he used on last week’s AEW programming
  • 5 on Your Side in St. Louis has an interview with Tony Khan.
  • This week’s Sammy Guevara vlog.
  • Jimmy Alexander of DCW 50 interviewed Nyla Rose.

Other Wrestling

  • Don West on Twitter wrote that his cancer has returned. “Unfortunately my cancer is back and I’m undergoing chemo. Thanks to all that have contributed in the past, and if you’d like to donate the GoFundMe page is “Join The Don West Tag Team Against Lymphoma”. God Bless.”
  • Former head of WWE talent relations Canyon Cemen wrote a post on his LinkedIn page thanking WWE for his time with the company. “It was an adventure to articulate and execute the vision, for talent development and NXT, of HHH/ #PaulLevesque, a visionary leader with world class creativity and discipline, and a good human,” part of his statement read. “We were fortunate to lead a team of passionate and interesting humans like #MattBloom, #WilliamRegal, #KristinAltman, Paul Fair, Cami Levin, Ali Bologna, Danielle Vastola, Amanda Tustian, Scott Amann, Gregg Bernard…and many more true professionals at WWE HQ past and present.”
  • NJPW’s LA Dojo will hold a camp on February 21. Those interested can sign up for the camp on NJPW’s website.
  • SportsKeeda has an interview with Deonna Purrazzo, who spoke about Mickie James’ upcoming appearance in the Royal Rumble. “I think WWE hasn’t always necessarily played well with others so there was so much shock factor to them announcing Mickie James entering the Royal Rumble as the IMPACT Knockouts World Champion (…) it put a whole new set of eyes on IMPACT’s product and then Mickie and my match at Hard To Kill so I was shocked as everyone else about the announcement but if it is benefitting IMPACT in some way, then I’m all for it.”
  • Summer Rae is a guest on The Sessions with Renee Paquette.
  • GCW on social media uploaded a brawl between Joey Janela and Matt Cardona in a storage lot. The two will meet at GCW’s Hammerstein Ballroom event this weekend.

WWE attorney responds to Martha Hart’s comments on lawsuit

Posted on by Josh Nason

With the debut of the Owen Hart episode of Dark Side of The Ring series hours away and discussion about his controversial and tragic death expected to be revived on social media afterward, his widow, Martha, has been doing interviews of late to tell her side of the story and to bring attention to the episode.

While her stance on what happened and her opinion of the company hasn’t changed throughout the years, Jerry McDevitt, outside legal council of WWE, wanted to have their side represented, and did just that with statements given to CBS Sports following the release of a Hart interview they did Monday.

McDevitt, who led the WWE legal team in the case, said that how Hart talks about the lawsuit is inaccurate and that her lawyer was trying to go about things the wrong way:

“What she did whenever this happened is, she hired a lawyer in Kansas City who we caught essentially trying to fix the judicial selection process to get a judge that was more to their liking. We caught them and went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court. The Missouri Supreme Court said, ‘No, no, no. We’re not going to let that happen.’ They essentially appointed an independent judge to come in from outside of Kansas City to oversee the proceedings. We were basically trying to find out what happened that night. Martha was not even remotely interested in finding out what happened that night; she just wanted to used it as a vehicle to beat up a business that she didn’t like that her husband was in, the wrestling business.”

In her book “Broken Harts”, Hart didn’t speak favorably of McDevitt and said that WWE’s lawyers were claiming Kansas City police weren’t being impartial in an effort to get the case heard before a different judge.

McDevitt also addressed the rift in the Hart family which Martha said was caused by Vince McMahon. McDevitt said that Martha and her lawyer attempted to get family members to sign a document to support her side in exchange for money. 

“In exchange for that, they were all promised a share of any verdict or settlement, which is highly illegal, completely improper and you can get in big trouble for that. What happened was some of the members of the Hart family were offended by this because they realized this was wrong…They knew this was wrong and they faxed me those documents, which I fell out of the chair when I read them. I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. This is completely illegal, you can’t do this stuff.’ All of that was then brought to the attention of the judge in Kansas City.”

Martha eventually settled for $18 million in the wrongful death settlement. McDevitt dismissed her claims that she only wanted justice and that she originally wanted $35 million and admission of punitive damages.

“Vince told her right there, ‘Look, Martha, I feel so bad for what happened. I feel responsible because this happened on my watch. I want to take care of you and your family, I loved Owen.’ He was almost crying. We offered $17 million to take care of her. How many times does a CEO walk in a room and say he feels responsible? ‘I’m not going to argue, I just feel responsible for what happened.’ They turned it down; they wanted to go to court for their $35 million. Fine, we’ll go and litigate. The next day, I get a call from her Canadian lawyer, saying they didn’t want to do it because they knew what they were facing with the other things I talked about. They said, ‘If you could put a little more money in. If you can go to $18 million we’ll settle right now.’ That’s how the settlement went down.”

Owen Hart died on May 23, 1999, at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO, following an equipment failure while he being lowered to the ring before his match at the Over The Edge pay-per-view. He was just 34 years old.

Figure Four Weekly (11/30/15): WWE makes a unique argument in concussion lawsuit

Posted on by F4W Staff

The “concussion lawsuits” between the clients of Konstantine Kyros and WWE kept rolling along the last few weeks.

Two weeks ago, Jerry McDevitt filed two lengthy motions on WWE’s behalf, Those are motion to dismiss in the Russ McCullough/Ryan Sakoda/Matt “Luther Reigns” Wiese lawsuit (McCullough v. WWE) and an opposition to Kyros’ motion to dismiss WWE’s preemptive lawsuit against Robert “Blackjack Mulligan” Wyndham, James “Koko” Ware, Oreal “Ivan Koloff” Perras, and Thomas “Dynamite Kid” Billington (WWE v. Windham). The Windham motion starts with an eight page introduction that, among other things, a reference to Billy Jack Haynes, the plaintiff in a related case, having “posted various illiterate rants on social media identifying those allegedly joining the lawsuit.” McDevitt adds that “in other illiterate posts, Haynes admits that he was a drug addict for the last 27 years and speaks of his lawsuit as his ’cause to have a union in the pro wrestling industry, vacation, time off injured, a 5 day/night work week, buy[ing] stock in company…” Both Haynes and Windham have routinely posted about the cases and solicited co-plaintiffs on Facebook, and an exhibit to the motion suggests he’s done even more in private.

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