The breach of contract lawsuit brought by Sal Corrente's WrestleReunion against Live Nation started its second week today for in Tampa, Florida. Expert witnesses Eric Bischoff, Bill Behrens and Colin Bowman are set to testify this week. Jimmy Hart
testified last week. The trial was originally set to run one week, but has dragged on for a second week.
WrestleReunion filed the suit in the United States District Court of Florida, Tampa Division, against Live Nation, (formerly Clear ChannelEntertainment) in November 2007.
The lawsuit alleged breach of contract and that WrestleReunion, LLC suffered damages including "loss of revenue, incurred expenses, loss of profits, and loss of business opportunities"after signing a contract to become involved with Clear Channel Entertainment Television only to see Clear Channel fail to live up to their end of the agreement.
According to the 14 page complaint, Eric Paulsen, a documentary producer "affiliated with Clear Channel" had contacted WrestleReunion while seeking access to performers appearing at the first initial WrestleReunion weekend in Tampa, Florida for a proposed A&E documentary. While WrestleReunion didn't take part in the documentary, the initial contact with Paulsen led to Corrente entering discussions with Clear Channel Entertainment Television Vice President Steve Sterling, who proposed filming and distribution of the WrestleReunion events for DVD, PPV and TV (listed in the complaint as 13 or 26 weekly syndicated episodes) with the two sides coming to an agreement on 1/21/05.
That signed agreement would have seen the WrestleReunion events and banner distributed via Clear Channel Entertainment Television, who would handle the production aspects of the events while WrestleReunion would act as the promoters of the event with CCET funding production and completion costs and the each side sharing a 50% share of the revenue.
WrestleReunion's complaint alleges that Clear Channel authorized Sterling and CCET President Joe Townley to represent that they would abide by the signed agreement, while the reality was that Clear Channel "intended to spin off or dissolve CCET, thereby making it impossible to produce and distribute WrestleReunion events."
The complaint noted that had WrestleReunion "known the truth, it would not have entered into contract" and that after the contract was executed, Townley continued to reiterate that they would be partnering with WrestleReunion to distribute and market the events, which led to WrestleReunion moving forward with additional projects when they wouldn't have otherwise.
The complaint also alleged that despite signing a deal with WrestleReunion LLC, Clear Channel failed to issue a press release announcing the partnership and "denied Plaintiff authorization" to announce the relationship, despite continually promising a formal press release.failed to "properly produce and videotape all of the WrestleReunion events."
Additional allegations in the complaint included claims of inadequate equipment at the first WrestleReunion event, including a promised production truck or enough video cameras, delaying the editing process as well as forcing "nine hours" of question and answer sessions involving Terry Funk, Mick Foley, Kevin Von Erich, and The Midnight Express, among others, to be lost as they were held without being filmed. The complaint notes that since Corrente had entered into an agreement with Clear Channel, he advised Highspots.com not to bring their own equipment when Highspots could have filmed the material and prevented the loss of the material.
The breach of contract claims also allege that Clear Channel failed to market or distribute the events and that hours of footage filmed by Clear Channel are "missing", including "two days worth of interviews" that were filmed for a documentary and a Mick Foley comedy show. Although not listed in the complaint, that footage could also conceivably include the three live events produced by WrestleReunion, which have never been publicly released. The complaint also noted that four shoot interviews (Bruno Sammartino, Diamond Dallas Page, Kevin Nash, Wendi Richter) were released (interestingly enough, via Highspots.com) but that Clear Channel did nothing to market or distribute the titles.
