The Mayweather Jr./ Bob Arum Debacle - TGR Press

Mayweather, Arum exchange legal punches The Grand Rapids Press 2008- David Mayo column Floyd Mayweather claims he's still owed money by former promoter Bob Arum from his fights against Arturo Gatti and Zab Judah, right. Arum counters that Mayweather owes him. GRAND RAPIDS -- Floyd Mayweather wants his money. Bob Arum wants his money. Lawsuits could determine who gets what, although exposing the inner workings of a boxing industry obligated to operate under often-flaunted federal guidelines could be the result, if the case ever sees a courtroom. Mayweather filed a lawsuit against Arum on March 7 in Clark County (Nev.) District Court, claiming he is owed money from his two pay-per-view fights with his former promoter, against Arturo Gatti in 2005 and Zab Judah in 2006. The lawsuit does not specify an amount Mayweather thinks he is owed because he claims Arum has denied him accounting. Arum counters that his company, Top Rank Inc., does owe Mayweather money, but that the Grand Rapids boxing champion owes the company even more, so payment was withheld. He said he plans to countersue Mayweather and other unspecified individuals involved with the boxer. "I don't really want to say anything further," Arum said Wednesday. "These are major lawsuits, and there are going to be major law firms handling them." Arum declined to name whom he might sue besides Mayweather, although some old history between the promoter and fighter, who spent 1996-2006 in a contractual relationship, might provide some insight. Arum frequently has railed against Alan Haymon, Mayweather's silent adviser, who operates at the top of boxing's food chain without a license, a position from which the promoter claims Haymon has skirted federal law and undermined contractual relationships. Haymon was instrumental in breaking Top Rank's relationship with Mayweather, and Arum contends he acts as an unlicensed manager, creating a hybrid role beyond regulatory control and circumventing federal guidelines which delineate roles of key boxing workers, including promoters and managers. The entanglements could lay out those details for the world to see, at the highest level of the sport, which is why it probably will be settled without a single rap of the judge's gavel. In October 2005, Top Rank sued HBO, Mayweather, Haymon, and Goossen-Tutor Promotions, alleging contractual interference for arranging a Mayweather-Sharmba Mitchell fight without the promoter's consent. Included in that filing was a letter, from HBO to Top Rank, in which the network disclosed plans to opt out of its then five-year-old contract with Mayweather and Top Rank, which effectively would break the promoter's ties to the fighter, since a single three-way contract bound all the parties together. Arum was flabbergasted, since HBO had no intention of breaking ties with Mayweather, but withdrew the lawsuit the same month it was filed, after agreeing to a new two-year contract. The new deal included a $750,000 buyout, which Mayweather exercised less than six months later, after beating Judah, so he could pursue a fight with Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather and Arum today share mutual interest in feting, not frustrating, HBO. Mayweather has become a mainstream star and pay-per-view leader. Arum just promoted a blockbuster in which Manny Pacquiao continued his challenge to Mayweather's pound-for-pound supremacy with a win over Juan Manuel Marquez, and also promotes unbeaten middleweight Kelly Pavlik and unbeaten welterweight Miguel Cotto. If anything, Arum would like to appease HBO and retain the possibility of a Mayweather-Cotto fight. Whether Mayweather would deal with Arum again is in question, but if he wins his September rematch with De La Hoya, and Cotto remains undefeated, the best fight in boxing becomes Mayweather-Cotto. Mayweather claims he was supposed to receive 85 percent of Top Rank's net revenues from the Gatti fight (which was co-promoted by Main Events), and 80 percent of its net from the Judah fight (co-promoted by Don King), on top of base purses of $3.1 million and $5 million, respectively. The pursuit of those percentages could produce a titanic showdown of bigwigs, cost millions in legal fees, deprive boxing of its best possible matchup, force Haymon to practice his public-speaking skills from a witness stand, drag unwitting television executives into an unwanted trial, and place the highest level of negotiations on public display. It sounds entertaining, if there weren't so many people who might be interested in working it out rationally before the legal microscope focuses on them.