Ryan Nemeth recounts the moment he was served with AEW’s countersuit
Ryan Nemeth recounted the moment he was served with AEW’s countersuit, describing it as a “pathetic attempt to humiliate & intimidate” him. He explained, “The night of our second, and final, performance, I was approached by a man in the theater lobby just outside the restrooms. He said he was there to serve me legal papers (‘Hey, sorry, you’re gettin’ sued’), and apologized for doing it at this inopportune time.” The legal notice indicated that AEW and Tony Khan were suing him to move their dispute into arbitration, effectively keeping it private.
Nemeth pushed back against the notion that he was caught off guard by the legal action, stating, “Nobody was ambushed. Nobody was caught off-guard. In fact, one might argue that me choosing the unfortunate lawsuit option was telegraphed very clearly by two years of me trying all the other non-lawsuit options. Finally, after that very fair, very professional heads up, we filed.”
He also dismissed the idea that AEW had no choice in when or how the papers were served, asserting, “For those of you with the knee-jerk reaction of ‘That’s how it works, idiot! He doesn’t get to choose when they serve you!’ I’ll say this: my former employer, a billionaire, definitely had a choice.” He pointed out that Tony Khan could have simply sent the notice to his attorney, adding, “My attorney’s contact information is printed quite clearly on the paperwork that I was served, so there goes that excuse.”
Nemeth criticized AEW’s handling of the situation, saying, “These are aggressive tactics that I believe are designed to intimidate me and to stop me from speaking up about how I was treated.” He also questioned AEW’s internal organization, revealing, “Oddly enough, I was also told the lawyer who offered me the original settlement had no authority to do so (that sounds like serious organizational dysfunction, but who am I to say?).”
He took further issue with how the legal action was carried out, explaining, “He could have also done this in a professional, respectful manner. Instead, he and his lawyers chose to send someone to Astoria, Queens, NYC, on a Saturday night, to find me in the lobby of a small 150-seat theater, in front of family, friends, and theatre-goers, mere minutes before I stepped onstage, in a pathetic attempt to humiliate and intimidate me.”
Finally, Nemeth questioned Khan’s leadership, stating, “So, I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but at this point it’s kinda hard to. I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt for the last two years, actually. At some point, the one man who single-handedly runs the entire company can’t just claim plausible deniability at every turn, on every issue that seems remotely negative. I mean, do you run your company, or not?”
Reflecting on the situation, Nemeth acknowledged that he would never understand the pressures of being a billionaire or a high-powered lawyer but maintained, “I do know that there are more humane and professional ways to approach this.”
Source: Ryan Nemeth Substack
