Figure Four Weekly 12/19/2016: In which the courts decide what is and isn’t pro wrestling journalism

When you try, as I do, to raid public record sources for the unconventional purpose of digging into professional wrestling, you tend to come across certain cases repeatedly because they were unique enough to set legitimate legal precedents. Nancy Benoit’s family suing Hustler over right of publicity is one; hell, it came up during the Hulk Hogan-Gawker trial. Speaking of Hogan, his lawsuit against WCW and Vince Russo is another. But of those cases, there are none that are simply more amusing than what happened with Mark Madden during the WWF’s lawsuit against WCW.

While the case morphed into including numerous different allegations, as well a counter-suit from WCW, it all started with the beginning of the NWO in the Spring of 1996. You probably know the Cliff’s Notes; WCW pushed the idea of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash being WWF invaders a little too hard, the WWF sued, the new Razor Ramon and Diesel were put on TV to make a legal point, and years later, the WWF got a settlement that included some kind of priority rights to buy WCW.

Current subscribers click here to continue reading.