WWE Subpoenas CTE Expert Bennet Omalu’s Research For Concussion Lawsuits

– WWE has subpoenaed CTE expert Bennet Omalu for the lawsuit filed against them by Evan Singleton and Vito LoGrasso in regard to comcussions suffered during their time with the company. The Boston Globe reports that the company filed for a subpoena back in April to get all of the records that Omalu has on professional wrestlers.

According to the outlet, WWE is intending to challenge Omalu’s diagnosis of Chris Benoit as suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). Omalu — who was recently brought back into the public eye via the film Concussion — was one of the first researchers into chronic traumatic encephalopathy and in 2007 was working with Chris Nowinski to research the condition. After procuring Benoit’s brain, he diagnosed Benoit with severe CTE, which was the first confirmation of the disease in a WWE talent. Nowinski had done his part in publicizing the findings, which WWE had disputed at the time.

The portion of Singleton and LoGrasso’s lawsuit that was allowed to move forward alleges that WWE knew there was a risk to them during the time they worked for the company after the Wellness Policy was instituted; other lawsuits and portions of the duo’s lawsuit from before the Wellness Policy’s institution were thrown out. Omalu, who acrimoniously split with Nowinski for reasons that have never been made clear (Nowinski said in a recent article, “The truth of the split has never been told.”), has obtained the brains of Chyna, Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney and is studying them for CTE. If they are diagnosed, that could complicate WWE’s case against Singleton and LoGrasso.

The article notes that this puts Nowinski in a potentially difficult position, as WWE is one of his Concusion Legacy Foundation’s largest benefactors but he has publilcly supported Omalu’s findings in the past. When asked by the Globe if he stands by Omalu’s diagnosis of benoit, he said in a statement through the CLF, “I am not a neuropathologist and I relied on Dr. Omalu’s statement that the brain met his criteria for a CTE diagnosis. I had no reason to question the diagnosis.” In his book Head Games: The Global Concussion Crisis, Nowinski wrote, “I was certain Benoit had suffered from CTE.”

WWE has attempted for years to obtain Omalu’s research on professional wrestlers but has never been successful.