Pasted below is an e-mail I received from Frankie DeFalco of Brew City Wrestling detailing his and Walt Talaskie of Platinum Pro Wrestling’s experience with Dale Gagner.
Mr. Gagner was heading a version of what he called the AWA that led to a lawsuit by WWE who own Verne Gagne’s AWA brand.
Mr. Gagner renamed the AWA site he maintained as Wresting Superstars Live as a result of the lawsuit. http://www.wrestlingsuperstarslive.com/
There are still promotions using the AWA name listed on Gagner’s renamed site including:
http://www.myspace.com/legendsofthefuture
AWA UK and more. http://www.wrestlingsuperstarslive.com/promoters.html
Here’s the e-mail from Mr. DeFalco in it’s entirety. Please note that Mr. Gagner is refered to as Gagne throughout the e-mail, and Mr. Gagner uses the Gagne name in his e-mail address.
The e-mail reads as follows:
This is a situation that may affect you if you put yourself in a position to be worked over by Dale Gagne. If you have any affiliation with him reconsider immediately.
The situation is an embezzlement scheme that Mr. Gagne/Gagner uses to steal finances from workers and promoters. This is a testament of how he operates I am sharing this information with you to prevent Mr. Gagne from black mailing the individuals mentioned in the copied emails below. I assure you that the situations involving the wrestlers that Mr. Gagne has fabricated are false.
The Scam is set up in a manner that Dale contacts wrestlers that have worked for him and tells them that he wants to put a championship belt on them but would need a retainer fee to secure the Property (The Championship) so that the Wrestler may take physical custody. There is a contract signed upon submitting that states the retainer will be returned upon the return of the belt or the date scheduled on the said contract which ever happens earlier. Mr. Gagne then never allows the title to change possession nor returns the retainer. The proof is illustrated below where Dale creates a false scenario to black mail the wrestlers out of the funds with an illicit defaming scenario.
This plays out where Dale solicited the belt deposit of $1,100 USD from 2 workers. Worker one was scheduled to take custody of the title in the Carolinas earlier this year, upon arrival in Statesville Mr.Gagne sends the current champion a text saying don’t switch the titles. This is fine but the worker is also not paid the fight fee’s owed due to there not being a title match. Mr. Gagne then tells the same wrestler get in touch with a Georgia promoter we will do the change there again when he arrives in Georgia the champion receives a message saying don’t do the switch unless I(dale) am there. Fortunately the promoter took care of the fight fee still Unfortunately for the promoter who bought a plane ticket for Dale to be a part in his show, Mr. Gagne no showed causing a financial loss for this promoter to elevate his scam. During this same time another wrestler in Australia is contacted regarding the same thing to win the belt from the current champion K-Mack, he agrees and sends his deposit and several hundred more to fly kmack in and his fight fee with the intention he would win said title. Come show day in Australia no title change! Being that the two wrestlers were now in Australia and the current champion they had a chance to share their stories and understand that they had be duped, so after making several attempts to contact Mr. Gagne they had no success until out of the blue Mr gagne sends along the email below outlining black mail.
Please share this with the wrestling community and let them know what they already assumed and that is that Doing business with Mr. Gagne is a liability.
Here is the email where it all started:
Eric – Welcome to the next chapter of your professional career. Enclosed and attached is a copy of the Property Agreement. Please review, sign and forward a copy to my immediate attention with the applicable retaining deposit. Upon receipt, I can issue you your "Talent Performance Agreement" for the Carolina’s on April 6th and 7th, 2009, where you will actually win an hold the title. However we need the contract and deposit processed immediately to continue with this plan and issue agreements. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I’m looking forward to working with the new champ! Dale R. Gagne
upon not receiving the title Eric requests his money back:
From: drgagne (drgagne@charter.net)
Sent: Tue 4/07/09 8:49 PM
To: Eric (########@hotmail.com)
Eric – No problem. I’ll be back in Rochester to transfer the funds from trust by the 20th as indicated.
See you in Vegas. When do you guys arrive Vegas?
DRG
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
At this point Eric and Andrew are both in Australia and realize they had both been scammed make several attempts to contact Dale and get this:
To: s#########@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: April 3-4
From: drgagne@charter.net
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:24:01 +0000
CC:
Hi Andrew –
I’m in the middle of a controversy that was brought to my attention just last week that can be incredibly damaging to our company both legally and image wise. Have you seen the pictures of yourself fully nude with a full erection on the web. Although I’m not fully aware of any pictures of Eric in this matter. He’s suggested numerous times in suggestive situations. Due to impending legal fees, it’s been suggested these money’s be kept on retainer until a resolution can be made. We’re in the process of keeping this issue as quite as possible until we can all come to a resolution. The last thing I want are the pictures and conversation to become any more public than they are.
Dale R. Gagne Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
That was on April 29th when the monies were scheduled to be returned on the 20th!
Mr. Gagne I am posting this information to take away your ability to Blackmail these two workers with you proposed photo shopped photograph! In exposing this scenario to the wrestling community I hope you are never able to execute this scam again. I suggest you submit to me the deposits or make them available for return to the appropriate parties. I have contacted local authorities and my attorney regarding this matter and hope you just do what’s right and return the monies.
Thank you,
WT
