The last update on the Candy Cartwright lawsuit against Matt Riddle, WWE, Gabe Sapolsky and EVOLVE came last month, when WWE hoped to move the case to federal court. Cartwright is suing over claims that Matt Riddle sexually assaulted her and the other parties ‘tacitly approved’ of his actions.
In a report by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE filed for a motion to dismiss the claim against them, as they believe the Northern District of Illinois is not a suitable venue because they had no involvement in anything that happened in Illinois.
WWE also claims that Cartwright’s lawsuit doesn’t “plausibly” claim that WWE personally encouraged or helped Riddle with what he is accused of. They state that even if the complaints were true, courts have ruled that for WWE to be tied into the lawsuit, the company would have to have an active role in the situation, instead of not acting on it. They also say that the suit claims Riddle is an employee of WWE when he is an independent contractor. However, even if he was, he wasn’t during the time the incidents allegedly happened.
Riddle signed his first contract with WWE on August 8, 2018, while the alleged events happened in April 2017 and May 19, 2018, following EVOLVE events. They said that the lawsuit has no evidence that they encouraged the behavior or tried to convince him it was a good idea. There wasn’t even a claim that the company knew about it. Mark Carrano, VP of Talent Relations, signed a declaration that WWE had no involvement in the aforementioned EVOLVE events. He said the claims are “simply false.”
