WrestleChat

Top Rope Promotions issued the following statement in response to Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman’s claims that the promotion did not pay them for their appearances at the event:

“Upon consultation with legal counsel, I’d like to be able to respond to what was said by the two.

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.

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 regarding the wrestling licenses of Mr. Nash and Mr. Waltman. It is our hope that we can prevent other promoters in Virginia, at the least, from being exposed to this kind of malicious treatment from these two performers in the future.”