The outcome of a lawsuit involving UFC could have a huge impact on WWE.
On August 9th, a federal judge confirmed that a lawsuit filed against UFC in 2014 can now become a class action lawsuit. This paves the way for almost 1,200 fighters to sue UFC for alleged unfair business practices.
The lawsuit alleges that UFC “is an illegal monopoly or monopsony and has snuffed out competition from other MMA promotions in an effort to drive down fighters’ wages.”
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained that the outcome of the suit could have a huge impact on WWE because the sports entertainment giant has been “far more anti-competitive” than UFC.
“The judge was pretty sepcific and very much was like the judge in the MLW case and was pretty negative when it comes to the big company and having 90% market share and abusing that power to keep salaries low. When you read all that, much of this, there are differences but there are more simalarities than differences between WWE and UFC when it comes to this, because WWE has been far more anti-competitive than the UFC has.
In terms of trying to keep other companies from flourishing, now they have not been as succesfull because of AEW – there is no AEW in MMA, there are people who want to be AEW like ONE and PFW…but the whole thing as far as this [is] the risks of trial are very bad for Endeavour if this goes to trial and they lose [because] it pretty much guarentees that the ruling that would come out of the trial would be used against WWE so they would have a second lawsuit especially now they have merged.
So it behooves them to settle out of court but if they settle out of court it would be a alot, a lot, a lot of money, Doing that you are still going to open it up because someone is going to see that they settled out of court… and it’s the same compant who runs the WWE. It’s almost a guarentee that it would happen if the UFC lawsuit is succesful in any sort of way.”
When Will WWE’s Merger With UFC Be Complete?
The news comes after it was reported that the merger between WWE and UFC could be completed in mid-to-late September. Back in April, it was announced that WWE and Endeavor had entered into a purchase agreement that would see the creation of a new company. As part of the agreement, WWE will merge with UFC. The deal which will see Vince McMahon and Ari Emanuel head the company will be worth an estimated $21 billion.
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