Sam Charles of the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Samantha Tavel (Candy Cartwright) has filed a lawsuit against Matt Riddle over alleged acts of sexual assault. WWE, EVOLVE, and a co-founder of EVOLVE was listed as co-defendants and the lawsuit is seeking $10 million against each of the defendants.
Tavel’s attorney John Chwarzynski commented on the matter:
“The WWE has painted a picture over the course of the years that female performers are to comply with certain rules. The WWE, since its inception, has hyper-sexualized female performers and they’ve profited from male aggression against these female performers.”
“We can only hope the state’s attorney’s office will do the right thing and open an investigation into this matter and press charges against Matt Riddle.”
WWE issued a brief statement:
“WWE has not been served with a lawsuit by Ms. Tavel. However, if served, we will vigorously defend ourselves and contest it.”
Mentioned in the lawsuit that Riddle had allegedly forced Tavel to perform sexual acts under the threat that she would lose bookings if she did not comply. According to Fightful.com, Tavel claimed in the lawsuit that she had bookings with WWE and EVOLVE around January 31st, 2020 and Riddle informed the companies that he did not want her working for them. Tavel was allegedly told that she wasn’t booked due to “issues with talent.”
Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com commented on the site’s message board about the lawsuit:
“We only have until tomorrow night to see WWE’s reaction as to whether or not Riddle is on the show. I know he was booked for Smackdown and if he’s on the show, it tells you they don’t take this seriously. If he’s not, then they changed the show based on this.
WWE I was told wouldn’t be commenting and hasn’t to me thus far.
If there’s any evidence of WWE bookings in 2020 for her, that would be ominous. If there aren’t, that would be as well on the other side. It’s hard for me to imagine they would have booked her this year given this is not a new story and WWE has known about it for a long time. But if they hadn’t, her claiming she had bookings and it not being true is something that needlessly kills her credibility, which she would need. So neither version makes sense on the surface.”