- Here is the full statement from
the Top Rope Wrestling promoters regarding Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman’s tweets
from the weekend:
“There was no “scam,” and such an
allegation, in a legal sense, is defamatory. Mr. Nash was paid $4,000 for his
appearance, by check, mailed to him on Monday, April 8, funds cleared by the
bank on Friday, April 12. Mr. Waltman was paid $1,200, in cash, the night of
the show. He did not have to complain to get his payment. In fact, neither Nash
nor Waltman complained to anybody in Top Rope management about pay the night of
the show. They both checked in to the hotel that we had booked for them after
the show, and we only became aware of their complaints regarding pay when we
saw the tweets from the two this morning.
Both had travel and accommodations
paid for by the promotion as well, as is standard. There was no agreement in
place with talent to disburse any of those revenues to talent. For Mr. Nash and
Mr. Waltman to suggest otherwise is untrue, and we feel is clearly intended to
do harm to the reputation of Top Rope Pro Wrestling, not only in the sense of
the allegations regarding pay and the “scam” comment, but also in the
adjectives used by Mr. Nash calling one of our staffers a “scumbag” and “hick,”
and as such constitutes actionable defamation on the part of Mr. Nash and Mr.
Waltman.
Similar arrangements regarding the
VIP Meet and Greet were in place with Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson and Mick
Foley. Jake “The Snake” Roberts also did a VIP Meet and Greet, and we agreed
with him ahead of time to give him half of the proceeds of that meet and greet
to go toward his medical bills. Jake was paid $1,000 from the VIP ticket sales
per our agreement.
It is telling that Mr. Waltman has
taken down eight of the nine tweets related to the show, including the most
inflammatory ones, about not getting paid and about “scams.” Perhaps he was
given legal advice as to what constitutes slander and defamation and came to
the realization that he had crossed the line and exposed himself to legal action.
We are considering all options to
correct for the slanderous and defamatory statements made by Mr. Nash and Mr.
Waltman and the damage to our reputation that has been done with these
materially false messages being sent out to their hundreds of thousands of
followers on Twitter and the additional coverage that has been given to their
messages on various wrestling news websites.
We will also be in contact with the
state commission that regulates pro wrestling in Virginia Virginia
It appears they resolved the
problems as Kevin Nash tweeted the following:
“Top Rope Productions was not at
fault .Marvin Ward working for the promotion lied and withheld payment due to
me.”
Top Rope followed up with this:
“Kevin Nash has corrected the record
regarding Top Rope Promotions on Twitter (@realkevinnash) with respect to
payment issues at Night of the Superstars. We have been in contact with Kevin
by email to thank him for clearing up what we both agreed was a
misunderstanding.
“We look forward to being able to
putting our focus on building upon what was a very successful house show at
Night of the Superstars last night.”
