The Hatfields and the McCoys of boxing are back at it again.
Golden Boy and Top Rank, who have knocked heads over the ring services of Pinoy Idol Manny Pacquiao and others, are about to launch suits and countersuits all over the legal landscape.
The sport’s longest fight went into a new round Wednesday with Golden Boy either “poaching” or signing a long-term promotional deal with “free agent” and “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire Jr.
(Don’t be surprised if Golden Boy’s Juan Manuel Marquez inks with Top Rank four or five days from as what will be a Top Rank counterstrike. But you don’t like to trade a 38 year old for a 28 year old with Donaire’s bright future even when signing Juan Ma will make Marquez-Pacquiao III a sure thing.)
We’ve seen this legal storm brewing between Oscar De La Hoya and minions on one side and Bob Arum and Top Rank brewing even before Donaire’s senational KO over Mexican veteran Fernando Montiel in Las Vegas on Feb. 19.
Only Tuesday night, Arum told me, yada, yada, yada, about how the 28 year old Fil-Am who sits atop the bantamweight rankings had “to live up to his contract.”
Arum also offered a carrot, saying he would pay Donaire, whose previous high purse was the $350,000 he got for fighting Montiel, $500,000 for a May 28 title bout and that he would make him a million dollar purse boxer “within six months.”
Arum’s outside counsel, Daniel Petrocelli sent a strongly-worded letter to Donaire’s Las Vegas based attorney Jerry Bailey Tuesday.
According to Top Rank insiders, Bailey’s moves were orchestrated by Golden Boy lawyer Judd Burstein.
Still, it was Arum’s position Tuesday night that a closer check of the contract between his company showed that, because of injuries Donaire had in the frist year of their agreement, considerable time was “tolled” and it was Top Rank’s stance that Donaire’s deal runs into 2013.
A week prior, Arum had told me that Top Rank exercised an option which pushed the deal into 2012.
Nonito and his influential wife, Rachel, are on a victory tour in the Philippines and the other night Donaire was noncommital when a Manila reporter asked if he was staying with Arum’s company.
The Hatfields and the McCoys of boxing are back at it again.
Golden Boy and Top Rank, who have knocked heads over the ring services of Pinoy Idol Manny Pacquiao and others, are about to launch suits and countersuits all over the legal landscape.
The sport’s longest fight went into a new round Wednesday with Golden Boy either “poaching” or signing a long-term promotional deal with “free agent” and “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire Jr.
We’ve seen this legal storm between Oscar De La Hoya and minions on one side and Bob Arum and Top Rank brewing even before Donaire’s senational KO over Mexican veteran Fernando Montiel in Las Vegas on Feb. 19.
Only Tuesday night, Arum told me, yada, yada, yada, about how the 28 year old Fil-Am who sits atop the bantamweight rankings had “to live up to his contract.”
Arum also offered a carrot, saying he would pay Donaire, whose previous high purse was the $350,000 he got for fighting Montiel, $500,000 for a May 28 title bout and that he would make him a million dollar purse boxer “within six months.”
Arum’s outside counsel, Daniel Petrocelli sent a strongly-worded letter to Donaire’s Las Vegas based attorney Jerry Bailey Tuesday.
According to Top Rank insiders, Bailey’s moves were orchestrated by Golden Boy lawyer Judd Burstein.
Still, it was Arum’s position Tuesday night that a closer check of the contract between his company showed that, because of injuries Donaire had in the frist year of their agreement, considerable time was “tolled” and it was Top Rank’s stance that Donaire’s deal runs into 2013.
A week prior, Arum had told me that Top Rank exercised an option which pushed the deal into 2012.
Nonito and his influential wife, Rachel, are on a victory tour in the Philippines and the other night Donaire was noncommital when a Manila reporter asked if he was staying with Arum’s company.
I guess it can now be said that the normally loquacious Donaire’s silence was Golden.
