Sunday, June 29, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Boxing bonanza knocked for loop

Negotiating ploys, bad economy keep lid on several bouts

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield has signed to fight cruiserweight champ James Toney on Oct. 4, with Mandalay Bay and the Staples Center in Los Angeles among the likely sites. Photo by John Gurzinski.

Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield has long said it's his goal to regain the undisputed title before he retires.

But he left a promoter with whom he made more than $123 million in 11 bouts to fight the reigning cruiserweight champion, who was to have fought the middleweight champion, who would prefer a shot at the super welterweight champion.

But the super welterweight has a date against the former welterweight king and is eyeing a bout against another former welterweight champ, who looks like a cruiserweight but insists he's retired.

Confused? Thought so.

But wait, there's more.

Though Holyfield has signed to face cruiserweight champion James Toney on Oct. 4 on Showtime Pay-Per-View, a rival promoter claims the economics of the fight are out of whack and the bout will not happen.

So that promoter is going forward with plans for an HBO Pay-Per-View card on the same night featuring a featherweight champion who would prefer to be facing the man widely regarded as the world's best featherweight.

Meanwhile, the recognized heavyweight champion isn't sure who -- or if -- he'll fight again, which is keeping a half-dozen fighters in limbo.

Welcome to the wild world of professional boxing, where anything can happen, usually does and probably will.

"Completely crazy, some of the stuff that goes on," said cruiserweight champion James Toney, who saw a potential big-money fight against middleweight champ Bernard Hopkins fall apart over Hopkins' refusal to take a cut in pay. "Me, I just want to kick some (butt). I want to fight the best guys who want to fight. Right now that's Holyfield, so we're going to get it on."

As recently as three months ago, it seemed the second half of 2003 would be a fight fan's bonanza. Super welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya had already signed to face former welterweight champion Shane Mosley on Sept. 13 at the MGM Grand.

While that fight is still on, few others that seemed like locks for 2003 are happening. Those fights were all but signed, but have been abandoned because of difficult negotiations and complications ranging from better available matchups to threats of lawsuits.

Chief among them was a potential Oct. 4 bout between WBA heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. and Holyfield. Because Jones was showing little interest in fighting linear heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, promoters and HBO executives were trying to conclude a deal for Jones to meet Holyfield.

That bout was to have been preceded by an intriguing matchup between Toney and Hopkins. But Hopkins' promoter, Don King, could not raise the money to pay Hopkins his contractual minimum and Hopkins refused to take less.

"This is the worst economy in years," King said. "It's almost like a depression, but still a lot of these guys have an inflated opinion of what they're worth.

"Bernard said he was standing by his convictions and couldn't accept less, and I applaud any man who has the courage of his convictions. But who did he hurt? Bernard rejected $6 million to fight Roy Jones, he rejected $5 million to fight Tito Trinidad, he rejected $3.5 million for (Joe) Calzaghe and he rejected $3.8 million to fight James Toney.

"The money is not there for these fights like it was in the '90s. In the '90s, there was a lot of big money flying around and you could guarantee guys that kind of money. But now, some of these fighters have to be smart or they're going to be sitting at home with their (guaranteed-minimum) contracts. ... They'll have no one to fight because there is no one who can come up with that kind of money to pay them."

King has an unlikely ally in that regard in Top Rank president Bob Arum, with whom he has frequently feuded for 30 years. Arum said current economic conditions make it almost certain Holyfield-Toney will never come off.

Promoter Dan Goossen has guaranteed Holyfield $5 million and Toney $3 million and is shopping the fight to a number of venues, primarily Mandalay Bay and the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Arum and King insist Goossen will be unable to come up with enough money to pay the fighters and cover an estimated minimum of $1.5 million in promotional expenses.

Arum also claims a clause exists in Holyfield's contract stipulating that Goossen must come up with a deposit in 10 days or the fight is off -- a point Goossen vehemently denies.

"Goossen and I are both talking to the Staples Center and to Mandalay Bay," said Arum, whose tentative Oct. 4 pay-per-view fight is a featherweight rematch between champion Erik Morales and ex-champion Guty Espadas. "I couldn't care less what (Goossen) does, but I'm willing to bet a lot his fight never happens. King knows the economy like I know it, and based on these economic conditions, that fight absolutely can't happen.

"You're talking $8 million in purses plus a million-and-a-half in expenses. Where is that money going to come from? The number of TV dates have gone down, meaning the opportunity to put on big shows has gone down, and so a lot of these fights are impossible to do because they won't sell enough to generate the money you need."

Goossen was outraged by Arum's comments, saying Arum typically criticizes other promoters' events. Goossen said before David Reid fought Trinidad in 2000 outdoors at Caesars Palace -- a fight Arum was not involved in -- Arum spent a lot of time phoning reporters and boxing people insisting the fight would be a dud and would be hurt by rain.

"Tell Bob to sit back and learn and see how we make it work," Goossen said. "We have a fight fan's fight and I guarantee you it's happening. Absolutely, positively, 110 percent, James Toney and Evander Holyfield are fighting on Oct. 4. Period. What we're dealing with is not a problem of finding a site. We have sites out there. I have a special feeling in my heart about Mandalay Bay and I feel they're one of the best partners you could have in a major event.

"But however those negotiations go, I'll have a site and the economics will work. Bob doesn't even have a fight. Tell Bob if he's so sure our fight won't happen, I'll make him a bet because Vegas is a gambling town. If the bell rings for our fight, then he retires. If he's so sure he knows what's going on, he doesn't have anything to worry about. He should put his career on the line if he's so certain of what he's saying."

Arum isn't the only promoter who would like to see Holyfield-Toney go away. King would relish seeing the fight fall apart because it would make Holyfield available again and give him a chip to use to make a megafight with Jones.

King got an option to promote the next Jones heavyweight fight when Jones moved up from light heavyweight to beat King-promoted John Ruiz and win the WBA heavyweight title March 1. King tried -- and failed -- to sign Lewis and former champion Mike Tyson to a promotional agreement, so his best chance for a big-money fight was to pit Holyfield against Jones.

King signed Holyfield in 1996 when Holyfield wanted a fight with Tyson, then promoted by King. According to figures provided by King, Holyfield earned $123.2 million in purses over their 11-fight association, as well as $3.15 million for training expenses and $450,000 in miscellaneous expenses. That comes out to $126.8 million, an average of $11.5 million a fight.

Holyfield earned $10 million or more in purses and training expenses from King for five fights -- $11.3 million for the first Tyson fight, $32.3 million for the rematch, $20.3 million against Michael Moorer, $20 million for the first Lewis fight and $13.3 million for the Lewis rematch.

By signing to fight Toney, King said Holyfield was leaving a minimum of $37 million on the table to take a bout King labeled "ridiculous -- a fight that goes nowhere and does nothing for Holyfield."

King said Holyfield could have gotten $12 million for a Jones fight, plus $15 million for a rematch should he have won. King also said he told Holyfield and attorney Jim Thomas he would have guaranteed the ex-champion $10 million for another fight if Holyfield defeated Jones twice.

"This guy was looking at $37 million, plus he was shooting at immortality. On speculation, (Holyfield and Thomas) went away from reality and took this (Toney) fight that nobody cares about," King said. "And what bothers me is that Holyfield never picked up the phone to talk to me. Everything was Jim Thomas.

"When Holyfield came to me (in 1996) when they said he had a hole in his heart and he was through and nobody wanted anything to do with him and he wanted a chance to fight Tyson, it wasn't Jim Thomas who called. It was Holyfield. It's hard to understand how they could have turned this down to go for that."

Repeated attempts to contact Holyfield and Thomas for comment were unsuccessful. But multiple boxing sources say Holyfield and Thomas balked at a Jones fight because Jones was to have received $28 million to Holyfield's $8 million.

HBO Pay-Per-View vice president Mark Taffet said work on a potential Jones-Holyfield bout slowed after both Jones and Lewis indicated a willingness to fight each other. Many boxing experts believe the two biggest pay-per-view bouts possible now are Jones-Tyson and Jones-Lewis.

Taffet said AOL Time Warner, which owns HBO and HBO Pay-Per-View, listens to its franchise fighters before trying to arrange major pay-per-view bouts. He said it was a significant development when Jones and Lewis said they'd consider fighting each other.

"We went through very extensive and difficult negotiations with Dan Goossen and Don King about Toney-Hopkins, for weeks and weeks through days and nights," said Taffet, who said he believes there will not be two fights Oct. 4. "What we found is we were trying to fit a size 10 foot into a size 6 shoe on a number of different fronts and we couldn't make it work.

"So we were looking at a possible Roy Jones-Evander Holyfield matchup. But when Roy expressed an interest in fighting Lennox, that changed things. When our franchise fighters -- a Lennox Lewis, an Oscar De La Hoya, a Roy Jones -- come to us and tell us their preference of who they want to fight, we then fit the business model to support that preference."

The second half of 2003 also was tentatively slated to host the third in a series of bouts between Marco Antonio Barrera and the aforementioned Morales, who waged two of the best fights in recent times. But Barrera sued to get out of his contract with manager Ricardo Maldonado and promoter John Jackson and has signed with De La Hoya, whose fledgling Golden Boy Promotions was seeking an established Hispanic star.

But Barrera is likely to wind up in court with Jackson and Maldonado, and says he won't fight Morales until next year at the earliest.

It will be much later in the year until the picture in the heavyweight division sorts itself out. Lewis might retire, though most insiders expect he will take a rematch with Vitali Klitschko or face Jones. Lewis' decision will start a domino effect that will impact the boxing landscape well into 2004.

"There's a lot of money and there are a lot of fights that could be made," King said. "But people have to come to their senses. First, they've got to be willing to fight the right fights. And they have to understand the situation in terms of the economics. If they don't figure that out, then we have problems because everyone is scrambling to pay these guys the kind of money they want."

MAJOR FIGHTS DEFINITELY ON FOR THE REST OF 2003

FIGHT	TITLE	DATE	SITE	PROMOTER
• Ricardo Mayorga vs. Vernon Forrest	WBA/WBC welterweight titles	July 12	Orleans Arena	Don King Productions
• Oscar De La Hoya vs. Shane Mosley	WBA/WBC super welterweight titles	Sept. 13	MGM Grand	Top Rank
• James Toney vs. Evander Holyfield	No titles	Oct. 4	Site TBA	Goossen Tutor Promotions

PROPOSED MAJOR FIGHTS THAT MAY STILL HAPPEN IN 2003

FIGHT	TITLE	THE SKINNY
• Kostya Tszyu vs. Sharmba Mitchell	Undisputed junior welterweight title	Postponed because of Tszyu injury, likely rescheduled for December in Moscow
• David Tua vs. Corrie Sanders	WBO heavyweight title	Tua camp hoping against hope for bigger-money fight against Roy Jones Jr.
• Laila Ali vs. Christy Martin	No titles	Likely to happen Aug. 23 in Mississippi in biggest women's fight in history

MAJOR FIGHTS ALMOST MADE THAT NOW APPEAR DEAD

FIGHT	TITLE	THE SKINNY
• Roy Jones Jr. vs. Evander Holyfield	WBA heavyweight	Jones indicates interest in fighting Lennox Lewis, killing Holyfield bout
• James Toney vs. Bernard Hopkins	IBF cruiserweight	Hopkins withdraws in dispute over contract terms
• Erik Morales vs. Marco Antonio Barrera	Recognized featherweight title	Barrera quits promoter, manager; faces court date pushing fight to spring 2004