by David P. Greisman

The fallout from last year’s canceled rematch between cruiserweights Guillermo Jones and Denis Lebedev has officially concluded with Don King being ordered to pay more than $1.5 million to fellow boxing promoter Andrey Ryabinskiy, according to Reuters.

The bout was canceled on the day of the April 2014 event after Jones once again tested positive for furosemide, the banned diuretic and potential masking substance for which he had tested positive after stopping Lebedev in May 2013. The World Boxing Association had pulled its sanctioning of the rematch.

A U.S. District Court judge held King and Don King Productions responsible for the failed drug test. According to court documents obtained by BoxingScene.com, Ryabinsky and his company wanted King to pay $2.4 million in expenses.

These expenses included:

- $800,000 put into escrow for Don King Productions for the rights to Lebedev-Jones 2 and for securing Jones’ participation.

- $1.6 million that went into promoting and making necessary arrangements for the fight, including payment of match fees, compensation and travel arrangements for match officials, acquisition and installation of technical equipment, securing of the venue, and advertising.

Of that $800,000 put into escrow, $250,000 was immediately released to King, with the remaining $550,000 held until the fight happened or didn’t happen. If the fight were to happen, King would get the rest. If it didn’t, Ryabinskiy would have the $550,000 returned to him.

Amazingly, after the fight was canceled King tried to get a bank to give him the $550,000 from the escrow account, saying that the bout didn’t happen “for reasons that have given rise to substantial controversy.”

In this court case, King argued that the initial $250,000 payment should not be refunded to Ryabinskiy because there was nothing in the contract saying it could be refunded. The judge agreed.

King also tried to argue that he shouldn’t owe Ryabinskiy for the promotional expenses as the event would’ve suffered significant losses, that Ryabinskiy was only owed the remaining escrow money and a portion of the nearly $98,607 it got in ticket revenue.

The judge didn’t agree, concluding that there also was revenue that could come in from the network airing the broadcast and from advertising revenue. Furthermore, the judge wrote that the burden was on King to prove that Ryabinskiy wouldn’t have made any further revenue, and that King “offered no theory to suggest [that Ryabinskiy] would have seen no financial upside from the TV broadcast.”

Ryabinskiy’s company will calculate its final damages and must turn that in to the court by Feb. 9.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com