With professional wrestling going through its hottest period in many years, it has generated a modern day free agent frenzy in a way. With AEW announcing the signing of some of wrestling top talents, NJPW locking down talent of their own in order to not lose anyone else, not to mention some players still in ROH, MLW and Impact Wrestling out there locking talents down to exclusive deals also.
This new era of opportunity for independent wrestlers has some talents speaking out about their situation with Lucha Underground, claiming the company is basically holding them hostage.
Lucha Underground has just finished their fourth season on the El Rey Network, however there is no word on a fifth season and there is apparently no rush from network executives to put out season 5. This uncertainty of another season hasn’t stopped the company from holding onto contracted talents despite any promises they seem to have made to their talents.
Former WWE Tough Enough competitor Ivelisse, who has been under contract with Lucha Underground for some time now has recently taken to social media and voiced her displeasure with Lucha Underground and how they have been holding her under contract despite her continuous request for a release, which she says they have told her they would grant but still fail to do so.
Ivelisse said in a recent post on twitter:
“l’ve done everything in my power to avoid having to do this but.. at this point I literally have no other choice.. For a bit over 1 1/2 [we’re assuming years] now I’ve been battling LU to grant me my release.”
“They convinced me to do S4 under the promise that I’d be released after the season concluded and was still unhappy. They currently are still refusing to do so despite having been told numerous times that they would. This has caused me an unbearable amount of grief for so long now, I really have no words to describe and don’t know what else to do.. being legally held hostage while Pro Wrestling is booming is a matter not to be taken lightly, especially coming from someone who has dedicated their life to their work, its everything to me.”
“I am at my wits end, so at this point, regardless what happens from here on out, at the very least my story is told.”
You can see Ivelisse’s tweet below.
— Ivelisse💣👑🇵🇷LaSicaria#Bow2None (@RealIvelisse) January 15, 2019
In a report from Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet, he expanded on Ivelisse’s claim and said that Lucha Underground is doing this to more talents they have under contract as well. He added that talks for the fifth season of Lucha Underground are also at a stalemate, and are in no rush to move forward.
Satin wrote:
“She’s definitely not the only LU wrestler who feels this way – From what I’ve heard, there’s no rush on S5 from all execs involved and there’s a stalemate over what the budget would need to be. Feels like they should allow releases if the season might not happen.”
You can see Satin’s tweet below.
– She’s definitely not the only LU wrestler who feels this way
– From what I’ve heard, there’s no rush on S5 from all execs involved and there’s a stalemate over what the budget would need to be. Feels like they should allow releases if the season might not happen. https://t.co/wh9dp1fIAs
— Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) January 15, 2019
As we reported earlier in the day former Lucha Underground talent Killshot, aka Shane “Swerve” Strickland announced that he is finally free of his contractual obligations to the company and that he is now officially a free agent.
Another Lucha Underground talent, Joey Ryan has also gone on record as saying that LU has blocked him from performing for All Elite Wrestling due to his contract with the company.
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