Lucha Underground Settles Lawsuits- Joey Ryan, Ivelisse, Thunder Rosa and El Hijo del Fantasma Granted Releases
Lucha Underground came onto the wrestling scene in 2014. The show was based out of California, in a venue known as The Temple. The entire season was taped, which made for very exciting matches that didn’t drag, backstage vignettes that were straight out of a movie and storylines that you’d normally see on the Syfy network.
The wrestling world fell in love with this art house promotion and television show. The future had a lot of promise, especially in the eyes of the wrestling talent, some of who signed seven season deals with the company. This was before the independent wrestling boom, and having a stable contract somewhere was a goal that was hard to attain for most wrestlers. The show had been renewed for a second and third season, getting on iTunes and striking a deal with Netflix as well.
Going into 2018, LU was renewed once again. Despite a smaller budget, it seemed like Lucha Underground wasn’t going anywhere. Season 4 came and went. Then some wrestlers came forward about how unhappy they were with their contracts.
The contracts that had been signed, restricted wrestlers from working for other companies. That wouldn’t be a problem if the wrestlers could support themselves on Lucha Underground money, but most wrestlers were only making $4,000 per season. That means in a four year span, a wrestler would only make $16,000. To put that into perspective, Joey Ryan was able to buy his house strictly off of independent wrestling money.
This lead to multiple lawsuits filed by El Hijo del Fantasma. One was filed with Texano Jr. and another was a class action lawsuit. The class action brought Thunder Rosa, Joey Ryan and Ivelisse into the mix.
Today, exclusively reported by Lucha Central, two of the lawsuits have been settled.
Lucha Central
Lucha Central can report that the battle between the two sides is over, with Texano withdrawing his lawsuit while a settlement has been reached between Baba-G Productions/El Rey Network and Fantasma, Ivelisse, Ryan and Moon. While not all terms have been disclosed, the class actions suit has been dropped with the agreement that Fantasma, Ivelisse, Ryan and Moon will be immediately released from their contracts, allowing them to be free agents immediately. Fantasma’s separate lawsuit has also been dropped as part of the agreement.
The wrestlers took to Twitter in response to the news.
Texano Jr. seems to be silent on the matter, at least on his Twitter account. The only thing he has tweeted about since the news broke is that UFC star Cain Velasquez has signed with AAA and will be at the companies TripleMania event.
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