News Item: MLive.com is reporting that apparently the entire guaranteed purse of $5 million for Floyd Mayweather Jr. is being handed over to the IRS to settle a $6.1 million lien against the undefeated fighter.
So, in essence, Mayweather may earn zero from his bout Saturday night against Juan Manuel Marquez.
Talk about a hungry fighter!
Which reminds me that…
I once vicariousy experienced an IRS “extraction” from a main event TV bout fighter’s purse and it went down smoothly and quietly.
I co-managed former cruiserweight champion Orlin Norris Jr. then and “Night Train” was hit with an IRS back tax levy
le. The fact that he was fighting Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand on Showtime did not escape the desk jockeys at the Las Vegas office of the tax collection agency.
I got a phone call from the agent and he explained to me he was taking a nice chunk of Orlin’s purse and we could do it the nice way, by agreement, or the nasty way, by court order.
We worked out an agreement the nicer way.
One day before the bout, I met the agent.
The IRS money chaser in Las Vegas, the guy who used to go after dollars owed to the government by high profile boxers, looked the part.
I forget his name but he had thick glasses, carried a battered valise and looked like a stereotypical bean counter for Uncle Sam.
The tax collector, who put a levy on Norris’ purse, looked like Arnold Stang in those old Chunky candy commercials. Or Mr. Peepers, take your pick.
The fight was a train wreck
Tyson “KO’d” Norris after the bell ending the first round had only sounded five times. (Don’t take my prejudiced word for it, look at the replay video below and note that Boston Globe scribe Ron Borges reported it thusly.)
Caught flush to the jaw with hands down as he turned to go back to the corner, Norris’ right knee buckled and he crumpled to the canvas while people were screaming that he was intentionally laying down.
The truth was Tyson’s illegal blow caused the right knee that had gone out in the ninth round of a fight before and cost him a certain victory, to fracture again. Norris wound up going to the hospital on a stretcher and left the city on crutches.
We should’ve gotten a DQ but the Nevada commission buckled to Tyson’s drawing power and ruled it a no contest. Norris was thrown a bone, a measly payday against Andrew Golota on Showtime and he lost four out of 10 rounds and the decision.
As Showtime voice Steve Albert correctly observed, I was screaming for the proper ruling which would have been a DQ victory for Norris.
An added fillip to the whole mess was ref Richard Steele warning Tyson “for the last time” about hitting on the break (with 10 seconds to go in the first round). Tyson’s bad intentions were obvious.
Oh, the taxman?
We made a prefight agreement with him and he departed the MGM Grand Arena with a lot more money than Norris went back to Lubbock, Tx., with.
I think Norris had to fork over about $230,000, peanuts compared to Mayweather’s tax debt.
Looking back, I can say this, the IRS hit Norris a lot harder than Tyson did.
Forget about elephants never forgetting. It’s the IRS that never forgets.
