David Otunga Thinks A Judge Would Rule In Andrade’s Favor If He Takes WWE To Court Over Non-Compete

Andrade is currently off AEW television after making his return at AEW Dynamite Six-Year Anniversary, weeks after being released by WWE.

There has been much discussion and reporting regarding Andrade’s non-compete and if he was told about the non-compete and the possibility of him having a one-year non-compete.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, lawyer David Otunga discussed the legalties of the non-compete.

Otunga ran down the language in the contract, saying, “there is a lot to be left to interpretation and there are vague clauses. The contract is a lot of contradictions. The whole independent contractors part, it just doesn’t seem legally enforceable to me.”

Otunga read the non-compete, which states that WWE can fire without cause and hold a talent out for a year without paying them. The contract notes that the non-compete is for one year.

“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,” he said.

Otunga noted that WWE does a 90-day as opposed to the one year.

“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.”

Otunga questioned why WWE would want to enforce this clause when it came to Andrade as they haven’t done it in the past. He didn’t believe it was to protect trade secrets or slow momentum.

In the end, Otunga theorized that WWE could be doing this to somehow get Adam Copeland (Edge in WWE) to return for John Cena’s final match.

Fans can find Tony Khan’s comments on Andrade’s status here.

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