Mogens Palle Sues Showtime Over Super Six/Kessler
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."
Palle claims Showtime went around him to help Sauerland Event steal his fighter and called Kessler a fighter with no loyalty.
"Sauerland and Showtime went around me to get Kessler," Palle said. "There are five other fighters and five other promoters involved in the Showtime tournament. Yet Showtime, working with Sauerland, only interfered with and disrupted my exclusive promotional contract with Kessler. Kessler is a great fighter but he shows zero loyalty. I built his career for 10 years. He must be suffering from amnesia. I got him the opportunity to win twoworld titles, which he did, and then the purse of a lifetime against Calzaghe."
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