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Sports May 18, 2022
Oscar De La Hoya with the DeWalt Home Depot Marketing Team in 2010 | Photo courtesy of Dewalt Fight Night Club/Flickr
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The company established by Oscar De La Hoya in 2002 to promote boxing matches is countersuing middleweight boxer Gennadiy Golovkin’s own firm, alleging the latter failed to live up to its end of the bargain in connection with the promotion of the second boxing match between Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez in 2018.
Golden Boy Promotions LLC brought the countersuit on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court against GGG Promotions LLC.
“Although GGG promised that it could raise substantial revenues for the promotion, it utterly failed to live up to those promises,” the countersuit states.
Even though Golden Boy allowed GGG to control specific television territories and sponsorship opportunities, GGG “failed to generate any money whatsoever for the event,” according to the countersuit.
The breach-of-contract countersuit seeks 55% of net ticket sales revenues, plus an additional payment from net ticket sales revenues of $2.5 million.
Golovkin started the dueling litigation on March 18 by suing Golden Boy Promotions, alleging the company owes at least $3 million beyond what has already been paid to the plaintiff for his middleweight championship match against Alvarez.
“This case involves a blatant disregard for the contractual and fiduciary obligations of Golden Boy Promotions toward a prominent fighter, Gennadiy Golovkin, and is illustrative of how certain promoters — mistreat even the most prominent of fighters,” according to the 40-year-old Golovkin’s suit.
Golovkin, a Kazakhstani, seeks at least $3 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages.
Golovkin and Alvarez met in the September 2018 rematch in Las Vegas a year after the two fought to a draw. Alvarez, now 31, won the second bout by a majority decision.
“Despite the financial success of the event, substantial funds were not timely paid over to GGG by Golden Boy,” the Golovkin suit states.
Golovkin alleges that it took Golden Boy Promotions, which co-promoted the match with GGG Promotions, three years to pay him the $9 million he was due for the fight and he now wants interest because of the delay.
But according to the Golden Boys countersuit, GGG filed suit “seeking to disavow its own promises and capitalize on technicalities in the parties’ co-promotional agreement” in order to glom onto additional revenue to which it is not entitled.
“GGG’s naked cash grab has no merit,” the countersuit states.
