Impact Wrestling has been on an upswing lately, but that doesn’t stop their old messes from coming back to haunt them. One such mess is Jeff Jarrett, who returned to the company at the beginning of 2017 as executive consultant, bringing his own Global Force Wrestling brand with him. He had big ideas for the company, including rebranding it under a name he owned. However, Jarrett was given a leave of absence that same September, and was totally gone from the company before Halloween.
Now, Jarrett and his company Global Force Entertainment are suing Impact Wrestling and its parent company Anthem Media, alleging copyright and trademark infringements related to the Global Force name and brand. Jarrett and his lawyer have refused to comment on the case, but PWInsider is reporting on the contents of the lawsuit.
According to the suit, Anthem violated state and federal trademark infringements with regards to Global Force Entertainment, as well as illegally using Jarrett’s name and photograph. It also claims that Anthem is misleading the public to think that some Impact Wrestling products are, in fact, made by GFW.
Jarrett claims that because he was given a leave of absence and then fired before the end of 2017, his original deal with Impact from earlier that year was never fulfilled, and therefore the company has no right to the 16 GFW Amped episodes that became Impact property as part of that deal. The lawsuit also claims that Anthem has kept the only master copies of those episodes, and specifically mentions the Global Wrestling App and DVDs available from the Impact website.
Jarrett — who is seeking substantial financial damages — and his lawyers are seeking an injunction to immediately stop Impact from selling or distributing and GFW amped content, as well as anything featuring the GFW or Global Wrestling Network names or logos, which would include Impact’s subscription streaming service. The lawsuit seeks to force Anthem to delete or destroy all copies of GFW content except for the Amp masters, which they want returned.
More details of the filing’s contents can be found at 411Mania.
