Former WWE star David Otunga gives his legal opinion on the contractual situation with Andrade

During the six-year anniversary edition of AEW Dynamite, Andrade made his return to AEW after being released from WWE. However, he has not appeared on AEW television since coming back to the company as WWE reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to AEW.

In a video published to his YouTube channel, former WWE star David Otunga gave his legal opinion on the contractual situation with Andrade…

“Under this non-compete clause, technically, a talent could sign a contract, WWE could turn around the next day and fire them for no cause, and then say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to pay you for one year and you can’t wrestle anywhere else for one year.’ This is in the contract. This would be enforceable, presuming this contract is valid.”

“This is WWE being smart because they’re trying to keep these disputes out of court. They don’t want talent to take them to court and challenge this because a judge would likely rule this invalid. The fact that you’re preventing somebody from working to support themselves in their given field for an entire year and you’re not compensating them, that right there, we can go back to contract 101, it has to be equal on both sides to where you’re giving up something in exchange for something else. In this situation, the talent would be giving up their right to earn a living in exchange for nothing because they wouldn’t be compensated by WWE. It’s different when WWE pays them because now they have a little more leverage for the contract to be seen as somewhat reasonable, but the argument can still be made. When WWE is not compensating the talent, I don’t know how they could enforce this. If he were to take this to court, I think a judge is very likely to rule in his favor and just throw out the entire clause in the contract. You can’t prevent somebody from earning a living for an entire year.” (quotes courtesy of Jeremy Lambert)