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Former ROH Women of Honor Champion Kelly Klein filed a lawsuit against Ring of Honor and its parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group earlier this week. Klein is seeking $75,000, alleging, among other things, that the company ended their contractual relationship with her at the end of 2018 due to “her complaints regarding the disparate pay for [Women of Honor] female wrestlers, the lack of safety and medical protocols after Plaintiff suffered the concussion in October of 2019, and the sexual harassment at ROH.”
Klein’s lawsuit alleges discrimination and harassment, unpaid royalties for Best of DVDs and merchandise featuring Klein, discrimination and harassment, an unsafe working environment, violation of State and Federation equal pay acts, abusive discharge, breach of implied contract and more.
The lawsuit specifically lists several instances where Klein was hurt during matches and reported the issues to the agent of her match but that medical personnel weren’t available to her dating back to an incident in September 2016 where she stated she hit her head and neck on a guard raid, sought treatment at her own expense and was never reimbursed for medical expenses. She stated a similar situation took place when she suffered a concussion in April 2018 in New Orleans and when she broke her tooth during a New York City match in June 2018 (the lawsuit notes in that instance, Klein was reimbursed for her dental bills at her request, but that the company never followed up with her on their own) and was left concussed and on a locker room floor rambling for an hour after being hurt during an October 2019 bout in Wales until wrestler Mandy Leon retrieved help for her.
In the lawsuit, Klein stated she spoke with several within the company about issues, including “unsafe” performers who were booked and the lack of a concussion protocol for talents. Despite being told that there was a protocol, nothing had been made available to wrestlers, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleged that in 2017, ROH talent Jay Lethal “leered at” Klein while she was in a hotel’s hot tub, asking her whether she was staying alone in the hotel and whether her boyfriend was also staying with her, actions that Klein stated made her feel uncomfortable. Klein stated that she reported the issue but later found out during another investigation with SBG human resources that her issues were never brought up to human resources and that no investigation ever transpired.
Klein is also alleging, “Sinclair and ROH discriminated against Klein on the basis of her sex by paying her compensation that was less than were paid to male wrestlers despite the fact that the performance by male and female wrestler requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and are performed under similar working conditions. The disparity in the rate of pay violated federal and state statutes prohibiting discrimination in pay rates based upon sex.”
The lawsuit states that at one point, Klein was contracted to the company for $20,000 a year and when she asked if that amount could be raised to $24,000, she was told that she could not receive that raise because all of the women were paid the same amount. Meanwhile, a male ROH talent was earning $189,000.
Klein had previously gone public with her issues during her time with Ring of Honor in a piece published by Newsweek. In November 2019, ROH stated they did not fire Klein but "notified her that we would not be renewing her contract."
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