Flo’s lawsuit against Willie and Rokfin
- Thread starter Chickenman Testa
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While people were under oath, lawyers should have asked who was the bathroom vandal. #missedopportunity
Could someone give me a brief synopsis on Willy because I am interested. It seems like Willy is universally liked/respected and CP and flo get a lot of hate. I started watching FRL only a few weeks before Willy was fired and my experience with Willy is different. I never liked when he was on FRL and I felt that he was scattered and off topic while CP was the much more logical & sensible one. I know Willy is considered a PSU homer which I of course can like and appreciate but I feel like I am missing the story on Willy. Anyone bored and willing to shed some light on what I am missing? I do look forward to hearing his side of the story on stalemate.
Let me give this a try since I am sitting in a house with no electricity at the moment
Willie is very passionate about wrestling and is one of those people who wears his emotions on his sleeve. He can be very opinionated, and this sometimes rubs people the wrong way. I believe that deep down Willie really is a caring person, and you can see that in his emotional reaction in his testimony in the most recent lawsuit. Willy's personality and his willingness to voice unpopular opinions worked just fine when Flo was a smaller company and their employees were able to be a little more free with their opinions and comments. Once private investors became involved in Flo's operations, you could sense a shift in how Willie related to Flo. I believe Willie felt like a fish out of water with the new corporate structure.
Since you only followed the last few months Willie was at Flo, I would say that is not a good indicator of who he truly is as an employee and person in general. I believe he had mentally checked out from Flo quite some time before he actually left. I happen to like Pyles, but I do see how people can view him in a negative light based upon his personality, which can sometimes come across as arrogant or condescending. He and Willie seemed to work just fine together when Flo was a smaller company, but like I mentioned earlier, once the private investors got involved in the company, I believe the relationship between Willie and Pyles changed. I am not blaming either one of them. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and people react differently to those changes in their lives. In the long run, I think leaving Flo will be a positive for Willie, and it is my hope that Pyles and Willie will be able to mend their relationship in the future. Friendships are too valuable to give up on too quickly. (Edit: After listening to the Stalemates interview last night with Willie, I don't have much hope they will mend their relationship) Anyway, that is my two cents on this topic, although I am sure there are many opinions different than mine out there, and they are probably just as valid. Gaylon
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Cael has always liked Willie.He just wasn't a fan of Flo.So once Willie left Flo that relationship kept building.It wasn't non-existent before just wasn't what it is now
I don't think you said anything wrong, but maybe read too much into why he left Flo. My source tells me that due to Vodka's persistent calls, the NCAA was closing in on Cael and Willie. They started Rokfin as a way to directly funnel money straight to Willie, and now it's not even from the team. No traces left behind. Genius.Let me give this a try since I am sitting in a house with no electricity at the moment
Willy's personality and his willingness to voice unpopular opinions worked just fine when Flo was a smaller company and their employees were able to be a little more free with their opinions and comments. Once private investors became involved in Flo's operations, you could sense a shift in how Willie related to Flo. I believe Willie felt like a fish out of water with the new corporate structure.
Since you only followed the last few months Willie was at Flo, I would say that is not a good indicator of who he truly is as an employee and person in general. I believe he had mentally checked out from Flo quite some time before he actually left. I happen to like Pyles, but I do see how people can view him in a negative light based upon his personality, which can sometimes come across as arrogant or condescending. He and Willie seemed to work just fine together when Flo was a smaller company, but like I mentioned earlier, once the private investors got involved in the company, I believe the relationship between Willie and Pyles changed. I am not blaming either one of them. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and people react differently to those changes in their lives. In the long run, I think leaving Flo will be a positive for Willie, and it is my hope that Pyles and Willie will be able to mend their relationship in the future. Friendships are too valuable to give up on too quickly. (Edit: After listening to the Stalemates interview last night with Willie, I don't have much hope they will mend their relationship) Anyway, that is my two cents on this topic, although I am sure there are many opinions different than mine out there, and they are probably just as valid. Gaylon
The saga may yet continue. Willie Saylor on Hager Happy Hour intimated Flo may appeal based on Flo including an appellate lawyer in the latter stage of the trial. Could explain why Willie was a little tight lipped on Stalemates and his Behind the Scenes expose' of Flo is yet to be published.
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When I see appellate lawyers being hired, I am reminded how much cheaper prevention would have been by paying him more to stay. The old adage, keep your friends close but your enemies closer applies here I think.
During the trial we found out Christain is now running things on the wrestling side of the business. I strongly suspect reporting up to his (former) best friend and sidekick wasn't the easiest pill for Willie to swallow. It also sounded like Willie wasn't the easiest guy to manage so it's easy to see how things could get a bit strained. In time, I think all parties will be better off.Let me give this a try since I am sitting in a house with no electricity at the moment
Willy's personality and his willingness to voice unpopular opinions worked just fine when Flo was a smaller company and their employees were able to be a little more free with their opinions and comments. Once private investors became involved in Flo's operations, you could sense a shift in how Willie related to Flo. I believe Willie felt like a fish out of water with the new corporate structure.
Since you only followed the last few months Willie was at Flo, I would say that is not a good indicator of who he truly is as an employee and person in general. I believe he had mentally checked out from Flo quite some time before he actually left. I happen to like Pyles, but I do see how people can view him in a negative light based upon his personality, which can sometimes come across as arrogant or condescending. He and Willie seemed to work just fine together when Flo was a smaller company, but like I mentioned earlier, once the private investors got involved in the company, I believe the relationship between Willie and Pyles changed. I am not blaming either one of them. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and people react differently to those changes in their lives. In the long run, I think leaving Flo will be a positive for Willie, and it is my hope that Pyles and Willie will be able to mend their relationship in the future. Friendships are too valuable to give up on too quickly. (Edit: After listening to the Stalemates interview last night with Willie, I don't have much hope they will mend their relationship) Anyway, that is my two cents on this topic, although I am sure there are many opinions different than mine out there, and they are probably just as valid. Gaylon
On StaleMates this week, we found out that Willie recruited Christian to Flo, and temporarily gave up his position running the wrestling vertical, so Christian could get up to speed. CP sucked up to Ray Machuca, and the move became permanent. At that point Willie became odd man out.
I feel bad for Willie. CP’s a douchebag. Imagine giving up your position so that type of loser could come on board. In return he regularly trashed Willie on FRL and backstabbed him in court. That sucks. Flo sucks. And CP really sucks.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't know Willie or Christian personally and I probably never will. That said, I call B.S. on a lot of what Willie said in that interview. As CEO, Martin could have put his boy Willie into any position he wanted, including the positions CP or Ray now hold. Hmmm what happened there? So no, I'm not buying the ridiculous "CP is a suck up" claims. Willie's naive reaction to corporate culture is telling, and it sounds like Flo might be the first company he's worked for ("What, you're telling me I need to act responsibly and not piss off the partners that are helping keep my employer's lights on??...."What's that you say, a subscription-based company needs to focus on driving subscriptions??"...."Huh, they cut off my access when I quit??").
Willie was a good court jester on FRL and a good Yin to Pyles Yang. He should stick with rankings though not only because he's the best in the business, but also because - let's be honest here - he is terrible in front of the camera.
I don’t think this is too far off. Prior to him leaving Flo, I and I bet many at least among college fans (seems he’s more known in the HS community) didn’t really know him as anything other than one of the co-hosts of FRL. I liked FRL with him on it, but he was definitely a little unprofessional at times, particularly on Twitter, and probably did some things he shouldn’t have after he left.
That said, that doesn’t mean Flo should have sued him over it! The trial is what kinda won me over on him (or Flo lost me).
It’s not really clear to me if Willie’s issue with CP stems more from them working together or from the lawsuit though. During the trial, I believe Willie admitted he didn’t want to run the show and just wanted to cover wrestling. So I don’t really buy the Pyles stole his job line he discussed on Stalemates. I know he discussed how Flo was getting more corporate and CP was on board with that, but that sounds similar to what goes on at a lot of companies, I don’t think that makes CP a backstabber.
I got the feeling Willie was more mad at CP about the trial than anything. He said “there were things that only CP knew,” however if Flo was searching texts and emails then I feel like they probably would have found it anyway. CP can definitely come off as arrogant sometimes, but I do think some of the hate is unwarranted and I don’t think he took any pleasure in having to testify against Willie.
You do realize Martin was out Feb. 2018. Willie quit Nov. 2019. A year and a half+ is plenty of time for scumbags to show thier true colors.
I can't speak to the accuracy of this -- just posting what Justin tweeted.
Doesn’t shock me. You would think for 1.7 million you would know the difference between the NLWC and Penn State Wrestling.
lol. Perhaps @lionlover can help out with a GIF or image, but Justin's tweet had me imagining FloKaren swimming in dollar bills.
Can you imagine what CP, Bratke, Spey, Bray, Rader et. all think of FLO spending 1.7 million on a pretty flimsy lawsuit whenever they look at their paychecks. FLO spent more on the lawsuit than every one of the wrestling crew combined have been paid in their entire careers by FLO. Ouch
$1.7m. Oof. And that number will be even larger after they appeal their eventual loss, because the point has never been to enforce Willie's employment contract but to financially exhaust Rokfin with lawfare.
The only legal arena where litigants regularly behave with such spite--where motions costing $10k are filed to retrieve a fraction of that--is matrimonial law. That's the only way to make sense of this protracted idiocy.
The only legal arena where litigants regularly behave with such spite--where motions costing $10k are filed to retrieve a fraction of that--is matrimonial law. That's the only way to make sense of this protracted idiocy.
Yeah - that’s a huge number for that rinky-dink case. I’m not sure how much juice their legal dept and GC have with the ultimate decision-makers, but our in-house shop would have been having serious discussions about pulling the plug as this dragged on.
The classic sunk cost fallacy could have been at play
1.7 million dollars probably would have made the Penn State - Oklahoma State dual a few years ago much more enjoyable to watch.
Tikk, the highlighted portion of your quote is a keeper! I may have to borrow it from time to time : )
Our execs got heartburn at 250k. 1.7M would have to be life threatening, like an important patent case, in order for that level of spend. Yikes.
In fact, non competes were often not contested unless a vp level guy went to a competitor. Not worth the PR black eye. I only recall going after one guy. He won
There’s one company in our field notorious for ridiculous non-competes. I don’t know why anyone works for them - maybe the salary and benefits are insane. Anyway, they are pretty much total dicks with everyone - vendors, landowners, competitors, etc. You can add total dicks to any employee who wants to get away. Willie’s case anecdotally shows to me that Flo leadership is likely filled with similar short-sighted, vindictive assholes. Good for Willie that he fought them and won
Right, $1.7 is a bill you'd see in IP cases, not non-compete cases, unless one, say, involved an employee making $500k/yr and taking actual trade secrets (as opposed to rankings) with them. Flo is abusing the court system for some reason that isn't in the papers.
Something tells me if he bought another wrestling media company, he had a favorable outcome or is planning to have a favorable outcome.
Does anyone know if Flo Karen is single ?
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Not sure I’m following your reply, but in case you missed the reference during the trail Karen got tripped up with Martin on Penn State Wrestling and the NLWC. She just decided to move on from the topic.
Most Karen's I know are married and all of their husbands have pretty cool hobbies that keep them out of the house.
#theanswersareoutthere
