Judge denies WWE motion to dismiss amended MLW antitrust lawsuit

A U.S. District judge in San Jose, California, has denied WWE’s motion to dismiss MLW’s amended antitrust lawsuit, meaning the proceedings will continue.

In his 14-page statement, judge Edward Avila disagreed with several points in WWE’s motion, including their stance that wrestling is an interchangeable programming option for broadcasters and that “the Court finds that MLW has sufficiently pleaded circumstantial evidence of WWE’s monopoly power” wheres WWE feels rights holders like NBCUniversal and Fox wield the power due to WWE receiving 85% of their revenue from TV rights.

MLW first filed the lawsuit in January 2022 and was allowed to file an amended version of the suit in March 2023 after the judge in the case granted WWE’s motion to dismiss a month prior.

From Thursday’s denial:

“At the pleading stage, MLW’s allegations of the revenues generated from the sale of professional wrestling media rights, and WWE’s 92% share of that revenue (with the next largest competitor possessing a 6% share), are sufficient to show dominance in the market.”

“In addition to defining the relevant market and alleging WWE’s dominance in that market, MLW has also sufficiently alleged barriers to entry, as required to show circumstantial evidence of market power.”

MLW is claiming that WWE has violated the Sherman Act of which the motion to dismiss was attempting to argue otherwise. The Court’s denials focused on the various parts of the Act as relates to this specific case.

Here’s two other passages from the denial:

“The Court also found that “MLW has sufficiently alleged that WWE engaged in anticompetitive conduct with respect to foreclosure of distribution channels. The Court need not address the parties’ arguments regarding foreclosure of wrestling talent and arenas.”

“The Court finds that MLW has sufficiently alleged antitrust injury. As described above, the FAC alleges that WWE engaged in exclusionary conduct, including foreclosure of primary content distribution channels, in an attempt to continue to dominate the professional wrestling media rights market.”

Here’s the timeline of events since the aforementioned initial complaint: