Michael Elgin Sues Impact Wrestling For Breach of Contract

Michael Elgin is suing Impact Wrestling, alleging that they breached his contract by removing him from programming over sexual misconduct allegations. PWInsider reports that Elgin, real name Aaron Frobel, filed a lawsuit against Impact on February 8th with the Circuit Court of Davidson County, Tennessee.

In the lawsuit, Elgin argued that Impact committed a material breach of his “Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions, Professional Wrestler Booking Agreement.” As you may recall, Impact suspended Elgin in the wake of sexual misconduct accusations against him during the #SpeakingOut movement in June of 2020. Impact reviewed the allegations and announced on June 26th, 2020 that Elgin “will not be appearing in any further Impact Wrestling programming.”

Elgin argues in the lawsuit that a wrestling career doesn’t compare to a “normal employment opportunity” and said, “The wrestler’s reputation and fame is dependent upon the entertainment and content company to deliver television programming to the mutual benefit of the wrestler and entertainment company.” He argued that Impact Executive VP Scott D’Amore told him there would be no investigations into the allegations and claims that around December 10th, D’Amore said via email that “the company’s decision not to utilize you in further programming was not based on any investigation beyond the public disclosures (and your responses thereto) at the time.”

Elgin also alleges in the lawsuit that he was asked to perform at a Pro Wrestling NOAH show in December of 2020, but that Impact “unilaterally canceled [Elgin’s] appearance, severely damaging [Elgin’s] reputation in Japan.”

Elgin is arguing that Impact intentionally breached their contract and that as a result, he has “suffered and will continue to suffer grievous harm including, without limitation, monetary damages and damages for mental anguish and humiliation, unless and until this Court grants relief.”

He is seeking “not less” than $5 million in compensatory damages due to financial incentives that were to be paid to him for his in-ring work, training, social media, merchandise and royalties. He included a copy of his contract with Anthem Wrestling.

Elgin has also released a video in which he addresses the lawsuit, saying that his contract recently expired and that he hasn’t wrestled in over a year despite being paid by the company. He said that he was filing the lawsuit specifically so that he could force the entirety of his side of the story to be put on the record in front of a court of law. He alleges that if Impact never investigated him and also paid his contract until it expired, that he is “innocent” but that the public’s impression is that he was fired.

Impact was served with the lawsuit on February 11th and has yet to respond. They have 30 days – until March 13th – to respond.