By Robert Morales, Los Angeles Daily News
Manny Pacquiao took apart Miguel Cotto with ferocious relentlessness, stopping Cotto in the 12th round Nov. 14 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
His promoter, Bob Arum, referred to Pacquiao in the post-fight news conference as the Tiger Woods of boxing. A reporter shouted out that no, Tiger Woods is the Manny Pacquiao of golf.
The victory gave Pacquiao success in seven weight classes - five sanctioned world titles and two people's championships. The record for sanctioned world titles is six, held by Oscar De La Hoya. Floyd Mayweather Jr. has five.
Ironically, they are two of the five defendants - the others are Floyd Mayweather Sr., Roger Mayweather and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer - named in the defamation lawsuit filed by Pacquiao this week in Las Vegas.
Not that jealousy has anything to do with either insinuating that Pacquiao might be using performance-enhancing drugs, as they are not alone in their suspicion of Pacquiao.
Two former world champions - Paulie Malignaggi and Kermit Cintron - have wondered if Pacquiao is dirty. Others - such as Hall of Fame fighter Carlos Palomino - have said of the Olympic-style drug testing demanded by Mayweather for his March 13 fight with Pacquiao that appears dead, "If this guy has nothing to hide, why not do it?"
In watching Pacquiao's performance against Cotto, it was amazing to see how hard Pacquiao was punching and how well he absorbed the powerful punches of Cotto. Even when Pacquiao was clobbered on the chin, he was undeterred.
By this time, Mayweather Sr. had already accused Pacquiao of doping. Yet, reporters weren't whispering at the aforementioned post-fight news conference that Pacquiao must be.
Just because Pacquiao's accomplishments are virtually unheard of, does not mean he is guilty of wrongdoing. It could be he is just that athlete who comes along once every hundred years.
Pacquiao started his pro career at 106 pounds, so it is rather mind-boggling that he is so good in the 147-pound welterweight division, in which he has beaten both De La Hoya and Cotto.
But Pacquiao was 16 when he turned pro in 1995 in the Philippines.
Mayweather was 16 when he won his first National Golden Gloves championship at, you guessed it, 106 pounds.
Mayweather won the third of his Golden Gloves titles at 19, at 125 pounds. Two weeks before his 20th birthday, Pacquiao won his first major pro title in the 112-pound flyweight division. He had only grown by six pounds. But bodies do develop at different rates.
Mayweather has twice weighed in at 147 pounds and as high as 150 for his 2007 fight against De La Hoya. Pacquiao's highest weigh-in was 144 pounds against Cotto. He weighed only 142 for De La Hoya, five pounds shy of the welterweight limit.
We're not naive. Anything is possible. Pacquiao has retained his punch while moving up like perhaps no other. Power is the first thing that goes when climbing the ladder. Also, he fought as low as 129 pounds in March 2008, just 20 months before weighed in at 144 for Cotto.
It just seems that the American credo of innocent until proven guilty fell by the wayside here. Pacquiao never has tested positive for anything illegal.
Yet, his reputation has taken the sort of hit from which it will never fully recover. From now on, Pacquiao will be looked upon by some as one who might have indulged in unsavory methods for fame and unprecedented achievements.
De La Hoya's Golden Boy company represented Mayweather in the negotiations for the Pacquiao fight. De La Hoya didn't help matters when he wrote in his Ring Magazine online blog that the punches by Fernando Vargas, "Sugar" Shane Mosley and Pacquiao "felt the same," an intimation Pacquiao could have been juiced when he stopped De La Hoya after eight rounds in December 2008.
Vargas and Mosley were both on steroids in their fights against De La Hoya in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
That was interesting coming from De La Hoya because he said after his loss to Pacquiao that he never felt Pacquiao's punches.
Another thing: Zab Judah wanted Mosley to take an independent blood test to prove he was clean ahead of their scheduled May 2008 fight that was canceled when Judah was injured.
Mosley is promoted by Golden Boy, and Schaefer said then he would not allow Mosley - who agreed to the test - to submit to anything other than what the Nevada commission mandates. Schaefer said Mosley did not need to be treated like a cheat.
It's easy to say Manny Pacquiao should agree to Olympic-style drug-testing if he's clean. It's just as easy to say he shouldn't have to become the first professional boxer to do so just because he is so extraordinarily destructive in the ring and, because, unlike others who have moved up in weight, his body has remained ripped with muscles. As has Mayweather's.
If boxing wants to adapt Olympic-style testing, that's great - as long as it applies to everyone. Not just the top pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.
Good, bad and tragic permeated sport in 2009
Just a few thoughts on a year that was filled with the good, the bad and the tragic:
Any Fighter of the Year award must go to Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao knocked out Ricky Hatton in the second round in May, literally putting Hatton to sleep before his head hitting the canvas awakened him.
Pacquiao followed that up with a serious November beatdown of welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, who was stopped in the 12th round of a fight he was losing handily.
Trainer of the Year is Pacquiao's chief second, Freddie Roach.
The continued improvement Pacquiao showed under Roach's guidance was very noteworthy.
Roach has turned the once wild-swinging and vulnerable Pacquiao into a controlled force of destruction.
There are several solid candidates for Fight of the Year. The junior welterweight bout between Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana in June at Staples Center was incredible.
Maidana was down three times, Ortiz twice, with Maidana winning a sixth-round technical knockout.
The middleweight fight between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez last month in Atlantic City - won by Williams via majority decision - was outstanding.
Neither topped the February slugfest between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz.
The fight was a push heading into the ninth round, with one scorecard even and each fighter holding a two-point advantage on one of the others.
Marquez stopped Diaz in the ninth round.
If there were such thing as a Most Impressive Victory award, it would go to Pomona's "Sugar" Shane Mosley and his ninth-round stoppage of Antonio Margarito in January at Staples Center.
Virtually no one expected the 37-year-old Mosley to have any real chance of defeating the 30-year-old Margarito.
But Mosley beat Margarito from pillar to post. Margarito then had his license revoked when he was caught with plaster-contained hand wraps before the fight.
Unfortunately, 2009 also witnessed the untimely July deaths of gentleman boxers Alexis Arguello, Arturo Gatti and Vernon Forrest.
Their demise puts the aforementioned achievements into perspective.
Source: dailynews.com
Saturday 2 January 2010
Boxing is flunking this test -- Los Angeles Times
By Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times
What began as a giggle has become a groan.
The sport of boxing, the master of such things, has once again tangled the lines on its parachute. The next sound you hear could be the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega-fight crashing to the ground and disintegrating.
This was to be the fight of the century, even though the century will only be 10 years and 10 weeks old on the scheduled date of March 13. It was to be the best against the best, former pound-for-pound king against current pound-for-pound king. The NFL has its Super Bowl. This would be boxing's.
Oops.
Enter all those things that keep boxing writers employed and boxing fans bewildered: Greed, jealousy, ego, stupidity. If you are familiar with the Ten Commandments, there are rules against lying, cheating, stealing and coveting. Boxing just Xeroxed those and advised all in the sport to do the opposite.
It has been a daily soap opera. The fight was to be at boxing's current mecca, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Then, with only i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. camp demanded extensive blood testing, not normal pre-fight procedure. By direct statement and implication, they said they were doing so because Manny Pacquiao's recent success came from his use of steroids.
For a while, the back-and-forth over when, where and how much testing would be put in the contract was worth a giggle. It seemed like little more than hype to hype the hype, some early pay-per-view selling for a fight that could do a record 3 million buys. Soon, it became clear that Pacquiao didn't see it that way, didn't just shrug like others who have fought the Mayweather clan and swallowed baloney sandwiches along the way.
The pride of the Philippines was angry, and he said so. There was no smoking gun, no document saying -- even hinting -- that he had ever taken performance-enhancing drugs of any kind. There was no newspaper story, no Mitchell Report, no papers fetched out of Victor Conte's trash bin at BALCO. There was only Floyd Mayweather Sr. and uncle Roger Mayweather, Floyd Jr.'s trainer, yukking it up to writers and broadcasters about their presumption of Pacquiao's steroid use. The basis of that seemed to be Pacquiao's muscular look and rise from a 106-pounder years ago to a fighter fairly comfortable at 147 now.
Soon, somebody stupidly decided to press this issue and Mayweather himself, along with best friend and manager Leonard Ellerbe and promoters Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy, were dragged along for the Kool-Aid drinking. All four should have known better. All four are smarter than that.
Floyd Sr. and Uncle Roger are not. Their forte is trash-talking and braggadocio.
To put it gently, both had
fight careers long enough to have resulted in ongoing fogginess.
It really got ugly when Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, who also took a lot of punches over the years but seems to have retained better clarity, said, in perhaps the sports put-down quote of the year, "This is all coming from Floyd Mayweather Sr., a disgruntled trainer who couldn't prepare his fighter [Ricky Hatton] to last past the second round against Manny. Just because he's a convicted drug dealer doesn't make him a drug expert."
Currently, there is an abundance of flawed premises:
* This fight has to take place because there is so much money at stake. Also, so much prestige for the sport.
That is logical. Boxing is not. It may be the only human pursuit, outside of war and divorce, where anger trumps greed.
* A delay will be OK and all will be forgotten, even if this takes place later in the year.
Any delay past May 1 means that boxing has so badly tripped over itself, right at a time when it had nicely weathered the threat of mixed martial arts fighting, that is has suffered a long-term setback. And if it tries to sell us a couple of interim fights (Mayweather versus Ricky Hatton's brother or Pacquiao versus Yuri Foreman or Paulie Malignaggi), the public and press ought to just stay home.
As Dick Vitale would say, "Boycott, baby."
* Pacquiao can't turn this one down because he needs to prove he's the best, plus the money will help both his Congressional campaign in the Philippines and his ongoing philanthropy.
Pacquiao doesn't need to prove anything to anybody. Nor does Mayweather. They are both great fighters. That's not going to change, no matter what does or doesn't happen or what is or isn't said. The public wants the fight, because the public has long been brainwashed into thinking that every sport needs to end with a Super Bowl. The public will be fine without. Not so boxing, which might just go back to being a nightly one-liner for Jay Leno, right after his Detroit Lions jokes.
As for the money, Pacquiao has filed a defamation lawsuit. It lays out the causes nicely. O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles has the case and lawyers at that firm must be crawling over each other over for a chance to get Pretty Boy Sr. and Uncle Roger on the witness stand. Pacquiao could make as much or more without ever taking a punch.
* If they do somehow come to an agreement and the fight is on, there will be so much vitriol that the lead-up to the bout will be unbearable.
Not in this sport, where people sue and counter-sue all the time. They slander one another in the afternoon and have dinner together at night. Mortal enemies on Monday are best friends Tuesday.
The outcome here will be fascinating. This is a new year. Boxing has been on a roll. But it also is an old con game with little sense of calendar.
bill.dwyre@latimes.com
Source: latimes.com
What began as a giggle has become a groan.
The sport of boxing, the master of such things, has once again tangled the lines on its parachute. The next sound you hear could be the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega-fight crashing to the ground and disintegrating.
This was to be the fight of the century, even though the century will only be 10 years and 10 weeks old on the scheduled date of March 13. It was to be the best against the best, former pound-for-pound king against current pound-for-pound king. The NFL has its Super Bowl. This would be boxing's.
Oops.
Enter all those things that keep boxing writers employed and boxing fans bewildered: Greed, jealousy, ego, stupidity. If you are familiar with the Ten Commandments, there are rules against lying, cheating, stealing and coveting. Boxing just Xeroxed those and advised all in the sport to do the opposite.
It has been a daily soap opera. The fight was to be at boxing's current mecca, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Then, with only i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. camp demanded extensive blood testing, not normal pre-fight procedure. By direct statement and implication, they said they were doing so because Manny Pacquiao's recent success came from his use of steroids.
For a while, the back-and-forth over when, where and how much testing would be put in the contract was worth a giggle. It seemed like little more than hype to hype the hype, some early pay-per-view selling for a fight that could do a record 3 million buys. Soon, it became clear that Pacquiao didn't see it that way, didn't just shrug like others who have fought the Mayweather clan and swallowed baloney sandwiches along the way.
The pride of the Philippines was angry, and he said so. There was no smoking gun, no document saying -- even hinting -- that he had ever taken performance-enhancing drugs of any kind. There was no newspaper story, no Mitchell Report, no papers fetched out of Victor Conte's trash bin at BALCO. There was only Floyd Mayweather Sr. and uncle Roger Mayweather, Floyd Jr.'s trainer, yukking it up to writers and broadcasters about their presumption of Pacquiao's steroid use. The basis of that seemed to be Pacquiao's muscular look and rise from a 106-pounder years ago to a fighter fairly comfortable at 147 now.
Soon, somebody stupidly decided to press this issue and Mayweather himself, along with best friend and manager Leonard Ellerbe and promoters Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy, were dragged along for the Kool-Aid drinking. All four should have known better. All four are smarter than that.
Floyd Sr. and Uncle Roger are not. Their forte is trash-talking and braggadocio.
To put it gently, both had
fight careers long enough to have resulted in ongoing fogginess.
It really got ugly when Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, who also took a lot of punches over the years but seems to have retained better clarity, said, in perhaps the sports put-down quote of the year, "This is all coming from Floyd Mayweather Sr., a disgruntled trainer who couldn't prepare his fighter [Ricky Hatton] to last past the second round against Manny. Just because he's a convicted drug dealer doesn't make him a drug expert."
Currently, there is an abundance of flawed premises:
* This fight has to take place because there is so much money at stake. Also, so much prestige for the sport.
That is logical. Boxing is not. It may be the only human pursuit, outside of war and divorce, where anger trumps greed.
* A delay will be OK and all will be forgotten, even if this takes place later in the year.
Any delay past May 1 means that boxing has so badly tripped over itself, right at a time when it had nicely weathered the threat of mixed martial arts fighting, that is has suffered a long-term setback. And if it tries to sell us a couple of interim fights (Mayweather versus Ricky Hatton's brother or Pacquiao versus Yuri Foreman or Paulie Malignaggi), the public and press ought to just stay home.
As Dick Vitale would say, "Boycott, baby."
* Pacquiao can't turn this one down because he needs to prove he's the best, plus the money will help both his Congressional campaign in the Philippines and his ongoing philanthropy.
Pacquiao doesn't need to prove anything to anybody. Nor does Mayweather. They are both great fighters. That's not going to change, no matter what does or doesn't happen or what is or isn't said. The public wants the fight, because the public has long been brainwashed into thinking that every sport needs to end with a Super Bowl. The public will be fine without. Not so boxing, which might just go back to being a nightly one-liner for Jay Leno, right after his Detroit Lions jokes.
As for the money, Pacquiao has filed a defamation lawsuit. It lays out the causes nicely. O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles has the case and lawyers at that firm must be crawling over each other over for a chance to get Pretty Boy Sr. and Uncle Roger on the witness stand. Pacquiao could make as much or more without ever taking a punch.
* If they do somehow come to an agreement and the fight is on, there will be so much vitriol that the lead-up to the bout will be unbearable.
Not in this sport, where people sue and counter-sue all the time. They slander one another in the afternoon and have dinner together at night. Mortal enemies on Monday are best friends Tuesday.
The outcome here will be fascinating. This is a new year. Boxing has been on a roll. But it also is an old con game with little sense of calendar.
bill.dwyre@latimes.com
Source: latimes.com
How Team Mayweather May be Able to Weather the Defamation Storm -- 8CountNews
By Paul Haberman, 8CountNews
A Quick Review of the Necessary Elements of Defamation Per Se in the Backdrop of Manny Pacquiao’s Lawsuit Against Team Mayweather and How Team Mayweather May be Able to Succeed in Challenging the Lawsuit
Round one of the battle between boxing’s pound-for-pound best, Filipino sensation Manny (Pac Man) Pacquiao and the undefeated Floyd (Money) Mayweather took place about two and half months ahead of schedule. On December 30, 2009, at a time when boxing fans around the world remained cautiously optimistic that Mayweather and Pacquiao would put their respective feelings on the drug testing controversy aside and salvage the March 13, 2010 mega-bout, Pacquiao filed a federal complaint (the “Complaint”) in the United States District Court of the State of Nevada against Mayweather, as well as his father, Floyd Mayweather, Sr., his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather, Mayweather Promotions, LLC, Richard Schaefer, the Golden Boy Promotions executive who has been acting as Mayweather’s mouthpiece in negotiations for the Pacquiao fight, and Oscar De La Hoya (collectively the “Defendants”). The Complaint alleges a single cause of action, defamation per se, and cites to several specific instances where the Defendants purportedly made statements inferring that Pacquiao uses or has used performance-enhancing drugs. Since the filing of the Complaint, it has already been reported that the March 13, 2010 date is off, and with the legal wrangling that will inevitably occur in the coming weeks, some may wonder if this fight will ever happen at all. At the core of this lawsuit is not when or if the fight will happen, however, but rather a basic legal question: Can the Defendants be found liable for defamation per se pursuant to the allegations made in the Complaint? A brief analysis of this possibility follows.
What are the Elements of Defamation and Defamation Per Se?
There are two basic forms of defamation, libel, which is defamation in a written form, such as in a newspaper, magazine, or blog, and slander, which is a defamatory spoken statement. The basic elements of a defamation cause of action are: (1) a false statement; (2) publication of the false statement to a third party; (3) fault amounting to at least negligence on the part of the publisher if the defamatory matter is one of public concern; and (4) damage to the person alleging defamation. When alleging defamation per se, or defamation by, of, for, or in itself, proof of damage is not necessary. Rather, one must be able to establish simply that a defamatory statement was made. When a public figure brings an action for defamation, he or she must also show “actual malice,” or that the person making the statement at issue knew it to be false or issued the statement in reckless disregard to the truth. Mere opinions are legally protected.
What Can Team Mayweather Do First?
Upon service of a federal complaint, a defendant may either answer the complaint, meaning that he or she would provide an itemized written response to the allegations contained within the complaint, or make a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b) and/or a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. Although Rule 12(b) provides seven separate grounds for filing a motion to dismiss, the most common ground is failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. By filing such a motion, a defendant is essentially alleging that the plaintiff has failed to allege the requisite elements of a given cause of action within the four corners of the complaint. To successfully oppose a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, a plaintiff must show that he or she has, in fact, made a prima facie showing, or showing at first view, that he or she is entitled to the relief sought in the complaint as a matter of law.
Given the high stakes involved in Pacquiao v. Mayweather, one would anticipate that the Defendants, or at least a few of the Defendants, will be making a motion to dismiss the Complaint. In order to make a successful motion to dismiss, the Defendants will have to allege that Pacquiao failed to allege the requisite elements of a cause of action for defamation per se. Pacquiao would then have oppose the Defendants’ motion by showing that he made a prima facie showing to entitlement to relief for defamation per se as a matter of law. To do so, Pacquiao would have to walk each statement made concerning his use of performance-enhancing drugs that is referred to in the Complaint through the elements detailed above and show why, before the start of any depositions or other discovery, he has made a sufficient initial showing of defamation per se based on same. The federal court must then review the Complaint, review the arguments, review the case law supporting the arguments, and decide whether or not Pacquiao’s cause of action is legally sufficient as to all or some of the Defendants.
Can Team Mayweather Succeed in Having the Complaint Dismissed?
Pacquiao’s Complaint details seven or eight specific instances where he was purportedly defamed. Of the specific instances documented, three or four of them appear to indicate that Pacquiao uses or used performance-enhancing drugs, while the balance of the instances seem fall into the category of innuendo, inference, or opinion. The strongest claim appears to be against Roger Mayweather, who allegedly told the website Boxing Scene that “I know he’s got somethin’ in his system anyway.” This particular statement reportedly came on December 30, 2009, the same day the Complaint was filed and several days after Pacquiao first started telling the press that he would be filing a lawsuit. Unlike most of the others, Roger Mayweather’s quote most explicitly declares that Pacquiao uses performance-enhancing drugs as if it were a fact. An allegation against Richard Schaefer is concerning for similar reasons, but is not directly quoted. The Complaint is thus rather vague as to how defamatory Schaefer’s alleged statements actually were.
The weakest claim appears to be made against Oscar De La Hoya, whose written tirade on his blog about the drug-testing situation is quoted within the Complaint. De La Hoya’s blog reportedly read as follows:
“If Pacquiao, the toughest guy on the planet, is afraid of needles and having a few teaspoons of blood drawn from his system, then something is wrong. The guy has tattoos everywhere; he’s tattooed from top to bottom. You’re telling me he’s afraid of needles? Now I have to wonder about him. I’m saying to myself ‘Wow, those Mosley punches, those Vargas punches and those Pacquiao punches all felt the same.’ I’m not saying yes or no. I’m just saying that now people have to wonder, ‘Why doesn’t he want to do [even more blood tests]? Why is it such a big deal?[‘]”
The Complaint goes on to allege that De La Hoya also added that “[w]hy don’t you want to do it? C’mon. It’s only a little bit of blood. If you have nothing to hide, then do the test.”
Despite its incendiary nature, at no time within the language quoted above does De La Hoya expressly accuse Pacquiao of using performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, De La Hoya uses a fact about Pacquiao to undermine Pacquiao’s claims of a dislike of needles, opines about Pacquiao’s punching power as against prior, naturally bigger rivals, and opines that Pacquiao should submit to random testing if he has nothing to hide. The rest of the allegedly defamatory statements fall between Roger Mayweather’s and De La Hoya’s remarks in their degrees of severity. A few, like De La Hoya’s, arguably appear to be nothing more than opinion, which is legally protected. In sum, therefore, it would appear as if several of the Defendants might be able to stop Pacquiao in round one of the mega-fight of 2010 and be dismissed from the lawsuit if a motion to dismiss is made.
* * *
And Speaking of Casting Doubt on an Athlete’s Gifts, There’s Also the Danny Green vs. Roy Jones Controversy: Lost on the firestorm that is the Mayweather-Pacquiao drug testing controversy was the December 22, 2009 letter written by John S. Wirt, Chief Executive Officer of Square Ring Promotions, Roy Jones, Jr.’s promotional company, to the New South Wales Sports Authority, regarding the hand wraps used by IBO cruiserweight champion Danny (Green Machine) Green in his December 2, 2009 bout with Jones in Sydney, Australia . Wirt alleges in the letter that Green, who won the bout by first round technical knockout, used wraps that were both wider and of a different, less soft type than is allowed under New South Wales’ Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations. Wirt thus requests that the result of the bout should be overturned.
While a quick look at the Regulations appears to support Wirt’s position, there are a few items to consider before joking that Danny Green is Australian for Antonio Margarito. First, Green’s wraps were allegedly inspected by New South Wales Sports Authority officials before the fight and were given clearance. It is thus an open question whether the New South Wales Sports Authority will rule against Green given its own potential culpability. Further, unlike Team Margarito’s placement of an overtly illegal substance on his hand wraps before his bout with “Sugar” Shane Mosley, Green’s allegedly improper wrapping appears to constitute, at best, a technical violation of the New South Wales Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations. In other words, the wraps, as described in Wirt’s letter, may have been banned by the text of the Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations, but may have not been otherwise improper if used in other jurisdictions. On the other hand, a Plaster of Paris-like substance, like the one found on Margarito’s wraps, is very likely banned by most every athletic commission worldwide.
Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq. is an attorney at the New York law firm of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, LLP. He is also a New York State licensed boxing manager and the Chairman of the Sports Law Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association. He can be e-mailed at haberman.paul@gmail.com. ©
Source: 8countnews.com
A Quick Review of the Necessary Elements of Defamation Per Se in the Backdrop of Manny Pacquiao’s Lawsuit Against Team Mayweather and How Team Mayweather May be Able to Succeed in Challenging the Lawsuit
Round one of the battle between boxing’s pound-for-pound best, Filipino sensation Manny (Pac Man) Pacquiao and the undefeated Floyd (Money) Mayweather took place about two and half months ahead of schedule. On December 30, 2009, at a time when boxing fans around the world remained cautiously optimistic that Mayweather and Pacquiao would put their respective feelings on the drug testing controversy aside and salvage the March 13, 2010 mega-bout, Pacquiao filed a federal complaint (the “Complaint”) in the United States District Court of the State of Nevada against Mayweather, as well as his father, Floyd Mayweather, Sr., his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather, Mayweather Promotions, LLC, Richard Schaefer, the Golden Boy Promotions executive who has been acting as Mayweather’s mouthpiece in negotiations for the Pacquiao fight, and Oscar De La Hoya (collectively the “Defendants”). The Complaint alleges a single cause of action, defamation per se, and cites to several specific instances where the Defendants purportedly made statements inferring that Pacquiao uses or has used performance-enhancing drugs. Since the filing of the Complaint, it has already been reported that the March 13, 2010 date is off, and with the legal wrangling that will inevitably occur in the coming weeks, some may wonder if this fight will ever happen at all. At the core of this lawsuit is not when or if the fight will happen, however, but rather a basic legal question: Can the Defendants be found liable for defamation per se pursuant to the allegations made in the Complaint? A brief analysis of this possibility follows.
What are the Elements of Defamation and Defamation Per Se?
There are two basic forms of defamation, libel, which is defamation in a written form, such as in a newspaper, magazine, or blog, and slander, which is a defamatory spoken statement. The basic elements of a defamation cause of action are: (1) a false statement; (2) publication of the false statement to a third party; (3) fault amounting to at least negligence on the part of the publisher if the defamatory matter is one of public concern; and (4) damage to the person alleging defamation. When alleging defamation per se, or defamation by, of, for, or in itself, proof of damage is not necessary. Rather, one must be able to establish simply that a defamatory statement was made. When a public figure brings an action for defamation, he or she must also show “actual malice,” or that the person making the statement at issue knew it to be false or issued the statement in reckless disregard to the truth. Mere opinions are legally protected.
What Can Team Mayweather Do First?
Upon service of a federal complaint, a defendant may either answer the complaint, meaning that he or she would provide an itemized written response to the allegations contained within the complaint, or make a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b) and/or a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. Although Rule 12(b) provides seven separate grounds for filing a motion to dismiss, the most common ground is failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. By filing such a motion, a defendant is essentially alleging that the plaintiff has failed to allege the requisite elements of a given cause of action within the four corners of the complaint. To successfully oppose a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, a plaintiff must show that he or she has, in fact, made a prima facie showing, or showing at first view, that he or she is entitled to the relief sought in the complaint as a matter of law.
Given the high stakes involved in Pacquiao v. Mayweather, one would anticipate that the Defendants, or at least a few of the Defendants, will be making a motion to dismiss the Complaint. In order to make a successful motion to dismiss, the Defendants will have to allege that Pacquiao failed to allege the requisite elements of a cause of action for defamation per se. Pacquiao would then have oppose the Defendants’ motion by showing that he made a prima facie showing to entitlement to relief for defamation per se as a matter of law. To do so, Pacquiao would have to walk each statement made concerning his use of performance-enhancing drugs that is referred to in the Complaint through the elements detailed above and show why, before the start of any depositions or other discovery, he has made a sufficient initial showing of defamation per se based on same. The federal court must then review the Complaint, review the arguments, review the case law supporting the arguments, and decide whether or not Pacquiao’s cause of action is legally sufficient as to all or some of the Defendants.
Can Team Mayweather Succeed in Having the Complaint Dismissed?
Pacquiao’s Complaint details seven or eight specific instances where he was purportedly defamed. Of the specific instances documented, three or four of them appear to indicate that Pacquiao uses or used performance-enhancing drugs, while the balance of the instances seem fall into the category of innuendo, inference, or opinion. The strongest claim appears to be against Roger Mayweather, who allegedly told the website Boxing Scene that “I know he’s got somethin’ in his system anyway.” This particular statement reportedly came on December 30, 2009, the same day the Complaint was filed and several days after Pacquiao first started telling the press that he would be filing a lawsuit. Unlike most of the others, Roger Mayweather’s quote most explicitly declares that Pacquiao uses performance-enhancing drugs as if it were a fact. An allegation against Richard Schaefer is concerning for similar reasons, but is not directly quoted. The Complaint is thus rather vague as to how defamatory Schaefer’s alleged statements actually were.
The weakest claim appears to be made against Oscar De La Hoya, whose written tirade on his blog about the drug-testing situation is quoted within the Complaint. De La Hoya’s blog reportedly read as follows:
“If Pacquiao, the toughest guy on the planet, is afraid of needles and having a few teaspoons of blood drawn from his system, then something is wrong. The guy has tattoos everywhere; he’s tattooed from top to bottom. You’re telling me he’s afraid of needles? Now I have to wonder about him. I’m saying to myself ‘Wow, those Mosley punches, those Vargas punches and those Pacquiao punches all felt the same.’ I’m not saying yes or no. I’m just saying that now people have to wonder, ‘Why doesn’t he want to do [even more blood tests]? Why is it such a big deal?[‘]”
The Complaint goes on to allege that De La Hoya also added that “[w]hy don’t you want to do it? C’mon. It’s only a little bit of blood. If you have nothing to hide, then do the test.”
Despite its incendiary nature, at no time within the language quoted above does De La Hoya expressly accuse Pacquiao of using performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, De La Hoya uses a fact about Pacquiao to undermine Pacquiao’s claims of a dislike of needles, opines about Pacquiao’s punching power as against prior, naturally bigger rivals, and opines that Pacquiao should submit to random testing if he has nothing to hide. The rest of the allegedly defamatory statements fall between Roger Mayweather’s and De La Hoya’s remarks in their degrees of severity. A few, like De La Hoya’s, arguably appear to be nothing more than opinion, which is legally protected. In sum, therefore, it would appear as if several of the Defendants might be able to stop Pacquiao in round one of the mega-fight of 2010 and be dismissed from the lawsuit if a motion to dismiss is made.
* * *
And Speaking of Casting Doubt on an Athlete’s Gifts, There’s Also the Danny Green vs. Roy Jones Controversy: Lost on the firestorm that is the Mayweather-Pacquiao drug testing controversy was the December 22, 2009 letter written by John S. Wirt, Chief Executive Officer of Square Ring Promotions, Roy Jones, Jr.’s promotional company, to the New South Wales Sports Authority, regarding the hand wraps used by IBO cruiserweight champion Danny (Green Machine) Green in his December 2, 2009 bout with Jones in Sydney, Australia . Wirt alleges in the letter that Green, who won the bout by first round technical knockout, used wraps that were both wider and of a different, less soft type than is allowed under New South Wales’ Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations. Wirt thus requests that the result of the bout should be overturned.
While a quick look at the Regulations appears to support Wirt’s position, there are a few items to consider before joking that Danny Green is Australian for Antonio Margarito. First, Green’s wraps were allegedly inspected by New South Wales Sports Authority officials before the fight and were given clearance. It is thus an open question whether the New South Wales Sports Authority will rule against Green given its own potential culpability. Further, unlike Team Margarito’s placement of an overtly illegal substance on his hand wraps before his bout with “Sugar” Shane Mosley, Green’s allegedly improper wrapping appears to constitute, at best, a technical violation of the New South Wales Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations. In other words, the wraps, as described in Wirt’s letter, may have been banned by the text of the Boxing and Wrestling Control Regulations, but may have not been otherwise improper if used in other jurisdictions. On the other hand, a Plaster of Paris-like substance, like the one found on Margarito’s wraps, is very likely banned by most every athletic commission worldwide.
Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq. is an attorney at the New York law firm of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, LLP. He is also a New York State licensed boxing manager and the Chairman of the Sports Law Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association. He can be e-mailed at haberman.paul@gmail.com. ©
Source: 8countnews.com
The Ring Magazine’s Nigel Collins’ early Pacquiao-Mayweather forewarning -- Examiner
By Chris Robinson, Examiner.com
As we take officially take in the New Year it still seems a bit surreal that on March 13th we most likely won’t be seeing Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather do battle. While ultimately disappointing, at least for now, it is what it is and all we can do is move forward with the hopes that one day the two men will meet.
One man who probably isn’t terribly crushed is the Ring Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins, who had been very vocal in weeks past about the possibility that a Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown could very well be less than scintillating in terms of action. Speaking recently in a piece entitled ‘Careful What You Wish For’, Collins opened up on his thoughts on the bout from the get go.
“The possibility of a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight has captured the imagination like no other in recent memory,” Collins stated. “The overwhelming consensus is that the match is absolutely the greatest thing that could happen to our eternally embattled and incredibly resurgent sport. I’m not so sure.”
Elaborating further, Collins flashed back to May of 2007 when the aforementioned Mayweather did battle with another one of the sports biggest superstars.
“Remember when Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya fought?” Collins asked. “The biggest money-maker in boxing history, right? A pay-per-view bonanza so large that it floored even the folks who promoted and televised it. But what did the mainstream media say the day after that fight? Boxing is dead because it had been a boring fight. Forget the unprecedented financial success. The fight sucked.”
While a primed Pacquiao would seemingly bring much more fire and excitement to the ring than a 34 year old De La Hoya, Collins never felt that meshing his style with Floyd’s would produce something eye-opening.
“Anybody who thinks that Pacquiao-Mayweather is going to be a great fight hasn’t been paying attention,” Collins boldly claimed. “When is the last time that Mayweather has been in a great fight? The Ricky Hatton fight had a great finish but was hardly a great fight.”
Collins went on to state that while Mayweather is a fantastic boxer, he didn’t have the proper mindset towards being the greatest of all-time as he claims. Some would counter Collins by saying that pitting Mayweather with Pacquiao’s relentless attack would bring out the best in Floyd. Collins doesn’t seem to take the bate.
“Moreover, don’t expect Pacquiao’s whirlwind aggression to compensate for Mayweather’s safety first style,” Collins pointed out. “There’s an outside possibility Pacquiao could impose his will enough to force a good fight, but not a great one. It takes two to do that. And unlike Pacquiao, the last thing on Mayweather’s mind will be to make everybody happy.”
In closing Collins stated his belief that the fight will one day happen, but fears how the eventual outcome may look.
“Some fights are just meant to be and Pacquiao-Mayweather appears to be one of them. It’s going to happen and it should. I have no beef with the necessities of history. Yet I still worry. I have this haunting feeling that we’ve already seen the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, and it’s going to look a lot like the final few rounds of the Pacquiao-Cotto fight-one guy running and the other guy chasing him. And if that’s not bad enough, wait until you read the headlines the next day.”
Collins was far from shy in sharing his feelings before the fight itself fell apart and looking back his words are almost chilling in some regards. For a fight that has been clamored for by nearly everyone, seeing Collins go against the grain and state his beliefs was somewhat striking. As a fan first, all I can hope is that Pacquiao and Floyd do meet and that they end up proving Collins wrong by producing something memorable. Gut feeling here is that Collins and everyone else involved wouldn’t mind too much.
Source: examiner.com
As we take officially take in the New Year it still seems a bit surreal that on March 13th we most likely won’t be seeing Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather do battle. While ultimately disappointing, at least for now, it is what it is and all we can do is move forward with the hopes that one day the two men will meet.
One man who probably isn’t terribly crushed is the Ring Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins, who had been very vocal in weeks past about the possibility that a Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown could very well be less than scintillating in terms of action. Speaking recently in a piece entitled ‘Careful What You Wish For’, Collins opened up on his thoughts on the bout from the get go.
“The possibility of a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight has captured the imagination like no other in recent memory,” Collins stated. “The overwhelming consensus is that the match is absolutely the greatest thing that could happen to our eternally embattled and incredibly resurgent sport. I’m not so sure.”
Elaborating further, Collins flashed back to May of 2007 when the aforementioned Mayweather did battle with another one of the sports biggest superstars.
“Remember when Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya fought?” Collins asked. “The biggest money-maker in boxing history, right? A pay-per-view bonanza so large that it floored even the folks who promoted and televised it. But what did the mainstream media say the day after that fight? Boxing is dead because it had been a boring fight. Forget the unprecedented financial success. The fight sucked.”
While a primed Pacquiao would seemingly bring much more fire and excitement to the ring than a 34 year old De La Hoya, Collins never felt that meshing his style with Floyd’s would produce something eye-opening.
“Anybody who thinks that Pacquiao-Mayweather is going to be a great fight hasn’t been paying attention,” Collins boldly claimed. “When is the last time that Mayweather has been in a great fight? The Ricky Hatton fight had a great finish but was hardly a great fight.”
Collins went on to state that while Mayweather is a fantastic boxer, he didn’t have the proper mindset towards being the greatest of all-time as he claims. Some would counter Collins by saying that pitting Mayweather with Pacquiao’s relentless attack would bring out the best in Floyd. Collins doesn’t seem to take the bate.
“Moreover, don’t expect Pacquiao’s whirlwind aggression to compensate for Mayweather’s safety first style,” Collins pointed out. “There’s an outside possibility Pacquiao could impose his will enough to force a good fight, but not a great one. It takes two to do that. And unlike Pacquiao, the last thing on Mayweather’s mind will be to make everybody happy.”
In closing Collins stated his belief that the fight will one day happen, but fears how the eventual outcome may look.
“Some fights are just meant to be and Pacquiao-Mayweather appears to be one of them. It’s going to happen and it should. I have no beef with the necessities of history. Yet I still worry. I have this haunting feeling that we’ve already seen the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, and it’s going to look a lot like the final few rounds of the Pacquiao-Cotto fight-one guy running and the other guy chasing him. And if that’s not bad enough, wait until you read the headlines the next day.”
Collins was far from shy in sharing his feelings before the fight itself fell apart and looking back his words are almost chilling in some regards. For a fight that has been clamored for by nearly everyone, seeing Collins go against the grain and state his beliefs was somewhat striking. As a fan first, all I can hope is that Pacquiao and Floyd do meet and that they end up proving Collins wrong by producing something memorable. Gut feeling here is that Collins and everyone else involved wouldn’t mind too much.
Source: examiner.com
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