Billy’s Boxing Blog

Photo-Chop: Bret “The Threat” Newton
 

All was going swimmingly today when I got the press release from Dan Goossen saying they won the rights in court to get Robert “The Ghost Guerrero” back with his promotional company from Golden Boy Promotions.
 
The press release stated that, In a ruling yesterday that sent a strong message to the California State Athletic Commission (“CSAC”), Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien, on behalf of Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis vacated an arbitration decision by a CSAC arbitrator that voided boxer Robert Guerrero’s promotional agreement with Goossen Tutor Promotions blah blah blah add infinitum. The award was procured by corruption, fraud or other undue means As a result, Goossen Tutor Promotions remains the promoter of Guerrero pursuant to its Promotional Agreement.
 
Not too long thereafter I got a press release titled “Promotional Rights To Robert Guerrero remain With Golden Boy Promotions”. After a lot of legal mumbo jumbo the releases main point was, the 5 year promotional agreement between Guerrero and GTP has expired by its own terms.
 
I tried to clear things up with Golden Boy but they were busy attending to other business and merely stated that they had just heard the news, but ruling can’t be right.
 
One has to wonder why they were not privy to the court proceeding.
 
Throw in the fact that apparently Dan Goossen was fuming last Thursday as Golden Boy book ended his Heavyweight weigh-in with an early press conference and then a late afternoon fight and it’s safe to assume things are not all Hunky Dory between the 2 Southern California based promoters.
 
All this came on the heels of Juan Diaz backing out of an agreed rematch with Paulie Mallignaggi. According to reports Diaz wanted more money and wanted the fight to be at a catch weight of 138.5 pounds. Paulie who wanted a fair shake after the Texas fiasco was livid when he learned Team Diaz had turned the fight down.
 
The promoters squared off on this one as well.
 
From the DiBella side we got a press release sticking up for Paulie saying among other things, “If Juan is a real fighter, he will pull up his skirt and tell Willie Savannah he wants the rematch,” said Malignaggi. “Willie doesn’t want to do a rematch because they can’t screw me the second time around. In the spirit of competition, Juan should want a rematch and this rematch should happen.”
 
“The problem with marketplace decisions are that they give the beneficiaries the idea that they have marketplace leverage, even when they don’t,” added DiBella, who has another theory why Team Diaz has chosen to stay away from Paulie Malignaggi this time around: “I guess Juan Diaz doesn’t want to see his mother crying with her head buried in her hands again.”
 
Coming to Juan’s aid Golden Boy sent out a press release saying, “Let the facts be facts.  Juan Diaz won the first fight.  The only controversy was the wide margin on one of the judges score cards, so there is no reason for Juan Diaz to take short money to fight Paulie Malignaggi again.  If Paulie wants to take short money and make it worth Juan’s while to come to New York and beat him again, then let us know and we are ready.”
 
“Juan is one of the most exciting fighters in the world and has a very loyal fan base in Texas which turns out in big numbers to see him fight.  If Paulie does not generate the same amount of money at the gate, then why should Juan be punished for that?”
 
All that jousting and no fight to speak of, that really blows.
 
Personally I think Paulie deserves a rematch with Diaz.
 
And I am still scratching my head trying to figure out why Golden Boy Brass wasn’t totally aware of the Guerrero ruling.
 
If anyone has a reasonable answer to that please fill me in.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 8:50 am and is filed under Boxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.