By Rick Reeno
Canadian middleweight contender David Lemieux (33-2, 31KOs) is making headlines in more ways than one.
Last week, it was announced that Lemieux had signed a promotional agreement with Golden Boy Promotions. A roundtable with the media took place last Saturday in Las Vegas, where it was revealed that Lemieux would be co-promoted by Golden Boy and Eye of The Tiger Management, which is run by Camille Estephan.
Then on Monday, promoter Yvon Michel of GYM issued a press release and claimed that his company still holds a valid promotional contract with Lemieux. Estephan's company issued their own release a few hours later, further staking their claim that Lemieux was free from GYM's contract.
For weeks, Lemieux and Estephan were claiming their promotional freedom. Michel explains the delay in pursuing legal action.
"We really took the time to have the lawyers evaluate [the situation]. We didn't want to act emotionally. When we got from our adviser, the confirmation, that our case is very good and our contract is valid - when we got the advise from our attorneys - we said 'okay, now we go.' We didn't want to start and then go back on our word, we started in this direction because we want to go until the end," Michel told BoxingScene.com.
Michel says there are several points to solidify his position.
"Before he came off the second year [of his contract], we agreed to a one year extension. That brought us up to December 10, 2014 and we have one year after that where we can match any offer. One reason that we agreed on the extension is because, if you look at his record, for two years [straight] he was out because of injury," Michel said.
"I have a record of so many times where fights were pushed or turned down because of his injuries. You can see clearly in the record. He had a fight in 2011 and then he didn't fight until June of 2012, because he was injured. Then he fought in December 2012 and then his next fight was not until June of 2013, because of injury again."
Besides that, Michel claims there was a clause in the contract that extended the promotional agreement by two years - if Lemieux headlined an HBO or Showtime televised event. Lemieux headlined an HBO event on December 6th from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where he stopped Gabriel Rosado.
During their extension period, Michel says the agreement terms were modified, where Estephan's company became a co-promoter of Lemieux. GYM, according to Michel, shared and profited from the promotional rights to Lemieux's fight against Rosado.
"There was a clause in the contract, if he is doing a main event on HBO, then we have a two year extension and he had a main event on HBO on December 6," Michel said.
"During the extension period, Camille requested to rearrange the agreement, because Eye of The Tiger wanted to have a part of the promotional rights of David, so we agreed to it. In the fight in New York, it was performed with the agreement that we had in place. We shared the promotional rights with Camille."