Mikey Garcia's 'slave contract' with Top Rank

[firstborn]

And I'm fine with that. Garcia cost himself 2 years because he made a bad decision.

And yea, only Arum and Mikey know the truth, though I did find it funny no one even bothered to question how OP could get a copy of the contract lol.

Great point! Wonder if it's public record from the previous lawsuit?

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Mikey missed the boat on potential manny, marquez and bradley fights and down the road a verdejo fight..

Literally, the dude was being groomed to fight manny but then pulled an andre Ward and ****ed his career,,, and much like Ward, he will sign with someone just to be feed to their beast much like how Ward broke free from goossen and is getting fed to kovolev

[DoktorSleepless]

And I'm fine with that. Garcia cost himself 2 years because he made a bad decision.

And yea, only Arum and Mikey know the truth, though I did find it funny no one even bothered to question how OP could get a copy of the contract lol.

Great point! Wonder if it's public record from the previous lawsuit?

OP got the snipet with the highlighted part from me when I posted it in another thread. The Complaint summary along with Mikey's contract was passed around a couple years ago online. It was first posted by badculture.net. (that's why you can see the badculture watermark on the picture)

http://www.badculture.net/wp-content/uploads/MikeyGarciaVsTopRank-1.pdf

They got it from public records though, which anyone can get access to through pacer.gov. The contract is an exhibit needed to prove the case, which is why it's also public.

[Larry the boss]

Garcia's contract is automatically extended to 5 fights or 30 months (whichever is first) whenever he wins a title. He won a title against Roman Martinez about 30 months ago, which is why the release is happening now.

This was actually the main point of contention in the lawsuit. The contract says "Promoter shall have the exclusive right and option to promote the Fighters' first five title defenses or bouts"

Arum interpreted the bouts part to mean any bout even if it wasn't for a title. So Garcia vacating his belt doesn't automatically mean he's free from his contractual obligations.

Garcia was trying to interpret it as "title defenses or title bouts" claiming the "title" in front of "bouts" was implicit even though it didn't say that because "title" was an adjective for both defense and bouts. Writing title in front of bouts would be redundant. So Arum only would have rights if Garcia defended a title, or was in a bout contending for another title. But since Garcia dropped his belt, he thought he should be free.

So even if Mikey's interpretation is correct, the contract would be up under Arum's own interpretation by now.

Ohhhh ok i gotcha...Thats why these fighters need intelligent people on their teams to read these contracts

[Heru]

Mikey coming from a close knit boxing family (or a winner/contender of one of the National Amateur Titles) is going to have a lawyer reading over the contract.

The problem is a 20 year old prospect that hasn't made more than 25K is going to sign that contract more often than not especially when it's offered by Top Rank (akin to what the NBA is to basketball leagues; who the **** would go to China?). Before-the-contract Mikey (and the and majority of prospects) isn't going to contest those shady stipulations in the contract; and if he does, Top Rank isn't negotiating exploitative contract language with a prospect that has **** leverage. Arum is an 80+ ***ish Harvard Lawyer with 50+ years honing his craft (contracts/negotiations) and he's in a position of leverage, of course they're going to sign the contract boxing family or not (LOL at the 75K minimum). After the initial contract, it's easy to keep fighters under control and signing the next extension.

The last prospect that had any real leverage was ODLH and even he litigated out of his contract! That ODLH loss for Arum just teaches him to close that loophole for the next crop of prospects. If that happened to ODLH, what makes you think that fighters like Mikey has any chance?

[.!WAR MIKEY!.]

These endless contracts need to stop. How come anybody does anything about it?

The haymon contract is almost the same

its not endless they are designed for the investor to get his money back and profit.

Its not fair for Arum to build up mikey up on his platform and leave and benefit elsewhere from Arums work.

These are normal contract in buisness, they have non compete, non circumvents, etc etc all for this 1 reason to not get ripped off from teh work you put in on it just to have someone else benefit from it.

[big_james10]

I agree however at one point Garcia claimed Arum wouldn't negotiate another fight for him unless he signed a contract extension. That was supposedly one of the primary reasons Garcia sat out.....Chavez Jr. mentioned something similar before breaking with Top Rank.

At the end of the day only Arum and Mikey know the absolute truth!

I think this is more than likely what happened. Arum is known for pulling this stunt.

[big_james10]

Mikey missed the boat on potential manny, marquez and bradley fights and down the road a verdejo fight..

Literally, the dude was being groomed to fight manny but then pulled an andre Ward and ****ed his career,,, and much like Ward, he will sign with someone just to be feed to their beast much like how Ward broke free from goossen and is getting fed to kovolev

Garcia wasn't being groomed to fight Manny. He was being groomed to be a sacricifical lamb to Pacquaio in exchange for a decent payday and an entire career of servitude to Bob Arum. He decided that it wasn't worth the cost and I can understand. Garcia will probably make more in his first year under Haymon than he made in his entire career under Arum.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Garcia wasn't being groomed to fight Manny. He was being groomed to be a sacricifical lamb to Pacquaio in exchange for a decent payday and an entire career of servitude to Bob Arum. He decided that it wasn't worth the cost and I can understand. Garcia will probably make more in his first year under Haymon than he made in his entire career under Arum.

He was being groomed any way you look at it..

A chance to beat an aging manny, especially if you're a Latino fighter is way more lucrative than landing a fight with Broner, thurman, garcia, lucas, etc


Mikey will sign with haymon, fight 3 bums over 2 years and end up getting fed to thurman or Porter and not make the pay we would fighting manny

[paulf]

There IS a way to deal with this. Fighters hiring good lawyers so they aren't caught in bad contracts.

Where's the bad contract part, though?

That's not a bad contract. That's not a predatory contract.

It says you defend five times or you sit. And, if didn't want to wait, he could have bought out or had someone buy him out, which is how things went with Gamboa. Standard issue stuff; nothing unfair about it.

I guess they couldn't come to an agreement on a number, or maybe Mikey didn't want to invest in ditching the contract and enjoyed a vacation.