Tag: brendan nyst

There is so often a deep, unpassable chasm between man and myth. The late James Rieher Snuka, the professional wrestling icon better known to his legion of fans as "Superfly," who died last month, was a hero to a whole generation of TV wrestling fans. Inducted into the World Wrestling Federation’s Hall of Fame in 1996, Superfly’s legendary ringside feuds with equally colorful giants of the sport like "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, back when an orchestrated wrestling match at Madison Square Garden was the biggest show on world television, made him the childhood idol of an army of juvenile 1980’s sports fans who thrilled to his daring and outrageous feats on the canvas. But the true story of Jimmy Snuka’s life left them all with a very different and darker legacy.
Big-time prize fighting has always walked hand in hand with big money litigation. It’s a world of feast and famine, full of tough guys and shrewd businessmen, all capable of being very heavy handed, each in their own way. The fast and the lucky rake in the big bucks while the rest are left to fight for the scraps. For more than 20 years the celebrated Don King was sued for allegedly short-changing nearly every one of his big name clients, from Joe Frazier to Mike Tyson, and even the late great Muhammad Ali. Some time ago our firm was involved in a client’s contract discussions with Don King Promotions about a scheduled heavyweight bout in Vegas. King’s approach to contract obligations was simple: ‘If you don’t like it, sue us. We’ve got more lawyers than you have.’
I was just a kid when OJ was publicly apprehended by the LAPD. I knew little of the man known as ‘The Juice’, and had no understanding of his place in the psyche of 20th century USA. I had no idea he was so revered by the American public, or why, and had no inkling of the bloodshed that had defined LA’s racial divide in the decades preceding the case. I merely saw another celebrity on trial.
Last month the Nyst Legal commercial litigation team spent nearly two weeks in the Federal Court in Melbourne, flanked by a phalanx of QC's, arguing the toss about exactly how far businesses can and can't go in talking up their product to the customers of their commercial competitors.
What goes up must come down, and vice versa. In a town that’s seen more than its share of booms and busts, landlords understand the concept all too well. In this town, when the cold winds of the economic winter blow, you cut your cloth to meet the market. If capturing a plum tenant means gifting them a rent-free period, or even shelling out for a fancy fit out, so be it. What you lose on the swing, you pick up on the merry-go-round. Or do you?