Ryan Nemeth says AEW made a “pathetic attempt to humiliate and intimidate” him with countersuit that was served

Last month, it was reported that former AEW star Ryan Nemeth filed a lawsuit against AEW, Tony Khan and CM Punk. The complaint was for assault, breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and intentional interference with prospective advantage. Nemeth was seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, and requested a jury trial.

In a Substack post, Nemeth revealed that he is being countersued by AEW and was served before his Off-Broadway show…

“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. He was giving me a legal notice that my former employer was suing me to move our legal dispute to arbitration, i.e., to keep everything private. I looked at the large stack of paperwork he’d just handed me. I saw the main bullet points: ‘Tony Khan… All Elite Wrestling… A lawsuit has been filed against you…'”

Nemeth said the following his initial lawsuit against AEW…

“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.

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 could have very easily sent the notice to my attorney; he has his contact info. (I mean, my attorney’s contact information is printed quite clearly on the paperwork that I was served, so there goes that excuse.) He could have had it sent to my attorney on Monday morning, or any morning, for that matter. So, yeah, my first thought was also, ‘Well, this wasn’t intentional.’ But, it kinda was. The billionaire in question definitely has my attorney’s information, as does his legal team and any independent counsel he’s gotten involved in this. These are aggressive tactics that I believe are designed to intimidate me and to stop me from speaking up about how I was treated.”

Nemeth said the following about AEW President Tony Khan…

“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 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.”

“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?

I don’t know what it’s like to be a billionaire; I never will. I don’t know what it’s like to be a high-powered lawyer. But I do know that there are more humane and professional ways to approach this.”