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Hamilton's version of events is that he and DSW were "fully compliant" with their contractual agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment. That partnership saw Hamilton personally paid a salary of $80,000 and Deep South Wrestling, the company, paid $80,000 to provide developmental training for WWE talents. They were to also provide a TV outlet, which the lawsuit claims was provided and aired in the Southeastern United States and Canada - I believe on The Fight Network - for those talents as part of a "talent exchange program".
While Hamilton and DSW may have been compliant by the terms of the contract, it should be noted that there were numerous allegations of bullying by trainers of WWE developmental talents, to the point that DSW were required to begin filming the training sessions by WWE. There were also numerous injuries during training and overall, the morale among talents in DSW was far lower than that of talents assigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling at the same time. Although not mentioned in the lawsuit, I believe there was also an issue with DSW signing a cable TV deal with MavTV as WWE does not want their developmental product seen on a wide scale basis. Over time, there were a number of factors weighing in against DSW. There were rumors of WWE pulling up stakes for many months before it actually happened.
In the suit, Hamilton noted that he had set up a series of live DSW events to be performed at the Six Flags park in Georgia and had set up additional events that would have benefited The American Cancer Society and M.A.A.D.A. for the summer of 2007. In the case of the Six Flags events, Hamilton had arranged for WWE to send talents for each of those live shows.
Hamilton claims that WWE planned to sever their relationship with DSW all along, yet acted as if nothing was wrong by arranging talent for the Six Flags event. Several days before the first Six Flags event was to take place, WWE officials (Mike Bucci and John Laurinaitis, although they are not named in the suit) arrived on 4/18/07 to inform Hamilton that WWE's was severing its agreement with DSW. The first Six Flags date was set for 4/22/07.
Hamilton alleges that the DSW deal required WWE to provide DSW and himself with 90 days notice that the deal was ending, which did not happen. He also claims WWE "arranged through an intentional and calculated method" to time their officials' arrival at DSW's place of business without providing notice to Hamilton or DSW. Hamilton alleged WWE "made every effort" to prevent him from knowing they were coming to the premises as their "plans were to remove all personal and computer information" without anyone from DSW being present.
Hamilton's lawsuit alleged that when WWE severed their ties on 4/18, they "removed wrestling rings, seating, computer hardware, software, and information belonging to DSW." The suit noted that "shared personnel" were informed they were being transferred (to OVW and later FCW) and should have "no further dealing" with Hamilton and DSW.
Hamilton's suit noted that WWE's decision prevented DSW from performing on the scheduled events that summer, causing DSW liability damages in the amount of $320,000 and Hamilton personal damages to the tune of $56,000. Hamilton also claimed that he suffered from emotional distress due to the situation and that WWE's "intentional actions were intended to cause Hamilton severe emotional distress." So, basically, the lawsuit claims that WWE intended to cause DSW and Hamilton damages by the way events went down.
The lawsuit requests that Hamilton personally and DSW, as a company, recover all damages arising from WWE's breach of contract and that Hamilton recover damages arising from "Defendants willful and intentional infliction of emotional distress" as well as any punitive damages ruled by a jury.
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For those of you who subscribe to the Elite section, former WWE executive Mike Bucci and I discussed the DSW shutdown in detail in the interview I conducted earlier this month. It can be found in the Interviews area. For those of you who would like to subscribe to the Elite section, visit http://www.pwinsider.com/elitenav.php.
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