But Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum and his company, Top Rank, Inc., are trying to inflict a legal blow to the chin of Mayweather manager Al Haymon in the form of a blistering 50-page anti-trust lawsuit that was filed in USA District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
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“If left unabated, this conspiracy threatens to fatally cripple competition in [boxing], thereby causing substantial and irreversible harm to boxers, legitimate promoters, and consumers”, Top Rank attorney Daniel Petrocelli wrote in the lawsuit.
“As the lawsuit explains in detail, they are violating federal law, defying state regulators and absorbing significant short-term losses to drive legitimate operators out of business”.
The suit references Haymon’s past in the music industry by saying he has “engaged in a new form of payola: paying broadcasters to air fights involving Haymon-contracted boxers, under the PBC banner”. In addition to the lawsuits, the Association of Boxing Commissions asked US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in April to initiate a Department of Justice investigation into Haymon’s business practices.
“The premier Boxing Champions series makes boxing free again by bringing championship boxing to free TV with a fighter-first promise and a commitment to the fans to restore boxing to the luster of its heyday”.
Just this week, the company controlled by Haymon and Waddell & Reed was publicly criticized for illegally sabotaging competitors’ efforts to secure venues in California.
In short, the lawsuit outlines the number of steps Haymon has taken to game the system and get around the separation between the function of manager and promoter, which is prohibited by the Ali Act. Arum is claiming that Haymon is attempting to forge a monopoly in the boxing industry.
“This isn’t something that happened overnight”, Petrocelli said.
Top Rank is the primary supplier of fights on HBO, and also has a deal to broadcast fights on TruTV.
De La Hoya said he welcomed it and would continue pursuing his own lawsuit. For instance, I think the counter-claim can be made that the Haymon play leaving “no room for…other promoters” can be debated, as high profile shows put together by Golden Boy, Top Rank and Main Events have just occured or are about to. Top Rank’s suit says of him, “Operating in the shadows, he has no website, avoids being photographed, and famously runs his empire from an old school flip phone”.
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The fighters, by and large, are not squawking, as their purses have headed northward when in the Haymon fold, and the market all-told seems to reflect the new reality, arguably, as other promoters need to keep talent happy, lest they seek to jump to the Haymon ship.
