Kevin Kelly & Tate Twins Defamation Lawsuit Against AEW Update – AEW Seeking to Move Lawsuit to Federal Court and Revealed They Paid Talents Over $60 Million Since 2022

As noted before, former AEW commentator Kevin Kelly and former AEW and ROH talents The Tate Twins (Brandon & Brent Tate), former The Boys, filed a defamation lawsuit this past September against AEW, AEW CEO Tony Khan, and AEW/ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni.

Post Wrestling’s John Pollock and Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that Kelly and the Tate Twins had filed a class action lawsuit complaint on September 6th and AEW and the rest of the defendants responded on September 7th requesting for the case to be moved to a federal court based on recent court documents.

In the filing, the defendants cited multiple factors and outlining AEW’s payment to talent and wrestlers for their reason for the change in court request.

Pollock and Thurston reported that Kelly and the Tate Twins currently plan to respond by requesting the case be returned to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. In an official statement to Post Wrestling, Kelly and the Tate Twins attorney Stephen New stated “We plan to move to remand.”

The attorneys for AEW, Khan, and Riccaboni reportedly argue that this case meets multiple thresholds under the Class Action Fairness ACT (CAFA). This law reportedly applies “to any class action before or after the entry of a class certification order by the court with respect to that action.”

Factors to qualify under CAFA include federal jurisdiction for class actions where the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million in the aggregate for the entire class and putative class, containing at least 100 members, and that any member of the putative class is a citizen of a state different than that of the defendant(s).

The misclassification issue is divided into two classes: “all current and former Talent”, presumably covering non-wrestler talent, and secondly, “all current and former Wrestlers”, covering wrestlers. The classes would cover all talent and wrestlers who worked for AEW from September 1, 2022, to the present.

In a declaration from AEW Senior Vice President of Business Strategy Chris Harrington, it was stated that 290 individuals provided services for AEW as wrestlers or non-wrestling talent under independent contractor agreements during that time period. AEW was stated to have paid those talents “more than $60,000,000 in the aggregate.”

Harrington reportedly also stated that ten members of the class hold residency in the state of Pennsylvania, which equals 3.4% of the class.

Harrington reportedly also stated that if AEW were to reclassify those members as employees, the company would incur a tax liability of “at least 9.95% of the pay rendered to Putative Class Members, meaning more than $5,970,000 in the aggregate.” AEW would also “incur costs in connection with employee benefits of approximately $18,125 annually per employee, meaning $5,256,250 per year in the aggregate.”

It was reported that along with an estimated 30% allocated for attorney fees, AEW also lists an estimate of $14,594,125 in expenses associated and would greatly exceed the CAFA’s minimum threshold of $5 million.