By Mark Vester
As he promised to do a few months ago on BoxingScene.com, Danish promoter Mogens Palle has filed a lawsuit against Showtime in Manhattan federal court, claiming the network conspired to help WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler break his promotional contract and sign a new deal with Sauerland Event in order to secure Kessler participation in the Super Six round-robin tournament. He says Showtime was unwilling to work with him on the Super Six. According to the suit, Palle is not seeking injunctive relief. He is looking for compensatory damages exceeding $75,000 and punitive damages to be determined by a jury.
"Kessler was a critical component (of the tournament)," said attorney Jethro Eisenstein to the Associated Press. "Showtime was courting Mogens Palle for some time and ... they had what they thought was a bad experience with Palle, and decided that they wanted to go around him. Showtime's intervention, you know, was at least part of the cause of Kessler jumping ship."
