The legal fight over WWE’s move to ESPN Unlimited is getting messier, and the two fans suing WWE are now making one thing very clear — they never wanted ESPN or BAMTech dragged into their case in the first place.
Plaintiffs Michael Diesa and Rebecca Tobak filed a motion on October 2 in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut objecting to last month’s decision allowing ESPN and BAMTech to join the lawsuit as defendants. The case accuses WWE of misleading customers about how they would be able to watch Premium Live Events after WWE moved its major shows to ESPN Unlimited beginning with WrestlePalooza 2025. Ringside News previously covered ESPN and BAMTech being added to the lawsuit, but the plaintiffs are now arguing they intentionally chose to sue WWE — not Disney, ESPN or BAMTech — and they aren’t seeking money from those companies.
That distinction matters because ESPN and BAMTech are now trying to push the whole thing into private arbitration. Their argument is that Diesa and Tobak both signed up for ESPN Unlimited, meaning they agreed to Disney and ESPN’s subscriber terms, including an arbitration provision. WWE has made a similar argument even though it isn’t actually a party to those subscriber agreements. Ringside News previously covered ESPN and BAMTech’s arbitration push, while the plaintiffs are now firing back that their claims are specifically against WWE and shouldn’t suddenly be controlled by legal terms belonging to a different company.
The court already handed WWE an important win in September by freezing discovery while the arbitration issue gets sorted out. That means the plaintiffs currently can’t dig through the broad collection of WWE records and internal material they were seeking. The judge did acknowledge their concerns about WWE having faced sanctions for evidence spoliation in other litigation, but said that wasn’t enough to justify forcing WWE through full discovery right now.
“The Court was concerned to read, in the Plaintiffs’ supplemental brief, that WWE had been sanctioned for evidence spoliation in other cases. But in this case, the appropriate way to address that concern is to remind WWE of the severe consequences that can be imposed if relevant evidence is lost or destroyed after the duty of preservation attaches.”
The court then made it clear why WWE wasn’t going to be forced to start handing over mountains of material while there’s still a chance this entire dispute ends up outside federal court.
“To force WWE to undergo the broad and burdensome discovery that the Plaintiffs seek on behalf of themselves and their proposed class, when WWE evidently has a non-frivolous argument that those claims should be addressed in an arbitral forum on an individual basis and under potentially restrictive discovery procedures, would be a disproportionate response. While the Court understands the Plaintiffs’ concern, it is insufficient to deny a stay.”
Ringside News previously covered that discovery was frozen while the arbitration fight plays out. There’s currently no deadline for the judge to decide whether the case stays in federal court or gets kicked into private arbitration.
The lawsuit itself goes back to the confusing rollout of WWE Premium Live Events on ESPN Unlimited. Diesa, a New Jersey cable customer already paying more than $100 per month for television service that included ESPN, claims he had to upgrade his Disney streaming package so his child could watch WWE events. Tobak, who had YouTube TV in New York, says she paid $29.99 for ESPN Unlimited on the day of a WWE event and then canceled afterward. Their argument is that WWE’s marketing — including comments from WWE President Nick Khan saying major WWE events would come with “no upcharge” — made fans believe existing ESPN customers would automatically be covered.
That wasn’t how things worked for everyone when WrestlePalooza 2025 arrived. Access depended on whether Disney had completed authentication agreements with individual television providers, meaning some customers could use their existing ESPN subscription while others had to cough up another $29.99. Ringside News was covering that mess in real time, including the fact that YouTube TV subscribers did not have ESPN Unlimited access for WrestlePalooza despite online rumors.
The proposed class covers U.S. customers who paid for the ESPN app between August 6 and September 20, 2025 while already paying for ESPN through cable or a live TV streaming provider, excluding customers whose provider already offered automatic app access by September 20. The plaintiffs are seeking damages, attorneys’ fees, injunctive relief and a jury trial — but before anybody gets anywhere near a jury, the court has to decide whether this fight belongs there at all.
At this point, the battle isn’t even just about whether fans were misled anymore. It’s about who gets dragged into the lawsuit, whose terms of service actually control the dispute, and whether WWE can force the people suing it behind the closed doors of arbitration without ever signing the ESPN subscriber agreement itself. That decision could completely change what happens next.
Do you think the plaintiffs should be allowed to keep this lawsuit focused solely on WWE, or should their ESPN Unlimited subscriptions force the case into arbitration? Leave your feedback in the comments.
