John K
30-01-2003, 03:08 AM
check this article out I read on a boxing website!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was bad enough that Jesse James Leija lost in his bid for the undisputed jr. welterweight title against Kostya Tszyu a few weeks back. It was made worse when, according to his lawyer Mike Miller, he was shorted on his paycheck.
"What happened was after the fight was we were handed a check for $216,000 -- they had prepaid $50,000 -- so that was a total of $266,000 that we had been paid," Miller explained last week from his offices in San Antonio, Texas. "The purse we contracted for was $450,000. When I asked for an explanation of where the rest of the money was their explanation was, 'Well, we had to deduct a lot of the expenses' and of course I had to ask 'Where were the expenses. Where's an accounting of them?' and they have yet to come up with one. And so, we're out approximately $145 to 150,000."
'They' would be Millenium Events led by Vlad Warton, who promotes Tszyu and promoted their fight in Melbourne, Australia at the Telstra Dome. Warton has a shaky reputation throughout the industry, something Miller had been made aware of.
"I had been forewarned about Vlad and Millenium Events before but I'm always willing to give a person the benefit of the doubt," Miller said. "I had to re-do their contract and get them to agree to these terms that any deductions we would talk about, no taxes would be taken out without full disclosure and agreements from both sides.
"So I felt like I had done everything I could and I wasn't going to let the fight not happen because it was an important fight for James and the purse was
fair. So all you can do is give a guy a chance to do the right thing and I did. And obviously he didn't take advantage of it and now we've got a problem."
Miller says that he tried to work out the discrepency with Warton while he was still in Australia.
"The fight was Sunday afternoon in Australia (January 18th in the States), I spent all Sunday evening and my free day, Monday -- and I had tickets to go to the Australian Open. Instead of that, I chased him all over Melbourne. I couldn't get a hold of him, he wouldn't return phone calls. I left messages at his hotel and then I had to get on a plane Tuesday and did the same thing the morning while I was waiting in the airport.
"I called all the cell phone numbers I had and all the hotel numbers I had and they would either not take my call or their cell phones weren't working."
On Tuesday, Miller told MaxBoxing that he finally got a response from Ron Nash of Millenium Events.
"I finally got an email from them. It appeared across my screen late Friday night, I retrieved it early on Monday morning," explained Miller. "Finally, they have produced what they consider to be an accounting, but the accounting is fraught with error. First of all, they are trying to deduct and stick James with $1,000 worth of insurance from all three sanctioning bodies which is $3,000. When everyone knows that it's standard in the business that the promoter pays the inusurance because if the fighter dies, the promoter gets the insurance money. So there's $3,000 off there, there's another discrepency in that they contended that we were in Australia for 28 days, when in fact we were only there for 14 days and so they were trying to stick us with something like $4,200 worth of expenses, when at best, they were half of that."
Also, $40,000 was taken out for sanctioning fees, which Leija and his people knew about. But the biggest question they have has to do with the money that was deducted for tax purposes.
"They took out over $135,000 worth of taxes with no receipt of payment of the taxes, no itemization of the taxes was derived at, because we hadn't submitted to them what our expenses were," Miller continued. "And so when I did the math, they owe us the $5,100 that I spoke about earlier and probably another $50,000 more they should have paid taxes on and there's also going to be a big question about who did they pay it to. Where's the receipt and are they going to issue a 1099?"
Under the Muhammad Ali Act, fighters and their representatives are entitled to a full accounting of their money and purse deductions.
"I emailed them back several responses yesterday," said Miller of the ongoing situation, "and I haven't heard anything back from them. And I told them that if this thing isn't settled by Friday, then we'll have to go to the mat."
Attempts to reach Warton via email were unsuccessful.
DOWNED UNDER
That wasn't the only snafu suffered by Team Leija, who faced one obstacle after another in Australia.
First, he was to leave the States for Melbourne on January 3rd. He and his crew were at his home awaiting a Federal Express package (with his airline tickets) that was suppose to arrive by 10:30 in the morning for a 2:00 p.m. fight. It would never arrive as they found out later in the day that their flight had been changed -- without notification from the promoters -- to
the next day.
From there they would embark on a journey that took over 33 hours. From San Antonio they would hit Salt Lake City, Utah (with a five hour layover), then to Los Angeles, then to Sydney and then finally to Melbourne.
If that's not bad enough, in Los Angeles, there was a flight at the very next gate leaving 30 minutes earlier that was a non-stop flight to Melbourne. In Sydney, Leija and his people had to take off and carry their luggage for about a mile to re-check their bags and go through customs.
Then, while in Australia, Leija didn't get his meal money for the first five days. But that was only the beginning of Leija's 'Planes, Trains and Automobile's' like journey.
While Tszyu had the luxury of training inside the actual ring that was supposed to be used for their fight in a health club at the Telstra Dome, Leija had trouble finding a facility that would let him use a ring that was bigger than a phone booth. I guess this is what they mean by home country advantage.
Then the final kicker would come when Chuck Williams, a veteran WBC judge, was replaced by a Thai judge. When pressed for an explanation, Leija's representatives were told that because Leija was American, Williams, who is also from the U.S., would not be used. When it was pointed out that an Australian judge had been appointed, it was explained that Tszyu is Russian.
"****," said a member of Leija's camp, "doesn't that really make Jesse Mexican, then?"
Beware to any figher going 'Down Under', you may not have a g'day, mate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was bad enough that Jesse James Leija lost in his bid for the undisputed jr. welterweight title against Kostya Tszyu a few weeks back. It was made worse when, according to his lawyer Mike Miller, he was shorted on his paycheck.
"What happened was after the fight was we were handed a check for $216,000 -- they had prepaid $50,000 -- so that was a total of $266,000 that we had been paid," Miller explained last week from his offices in San Antonio, Texas. "The purse we contracted for was $450,000. When I asked for an explanation of where the rest of the money was their explanation was, 'Well, we had to deduct a lot of the expenses' and of course I had to ask 'Where were the expenses. Where's an accounting of them?' and they have yet to come up with one. And so, we're out approximately $145 to 150,000."
'They' would be Millenium Events led by Vlad Warton, who promotes Tszyu and promoted their fight in Melbourne, Australia at the Telstra Dome. Warton has a shaky reputation throughout the industry, something Miller had been made aware of.
"I had been forewarned about Vlad and Millenium Events before but I'm always willing to give a person the benefit of the doubt," Miller said. "I had to re-do their contract and get them to agree to these terms that any deductions we would talk about, no taxes would be taken out without full disclosure and agreements from both sides.
"So I felt like I had done everything I could and I wasn't going to let the fight not happen because it was an important fight for James and the purse was
fair. So all you can do is give a guy a chance to do the right thing and I did. And obviously he didn't take advantage of it and now we've got a problem."
Miller says that he tried to work out the discrepency with Warton while he was still in Australia.
"The fight was Sunday afternoon in Australia (January 18th in the States), I spent all Sunday evening and my free day, Monday -- and I had tickets to go to the Australian Open. Instead of that, I chased him all over Melbourne. I couldn't get a hold of him, he wouldn't return phone calls. I left messages at his hotel and then I had to get on a plane Tuesday and did the same thing the morning while I was waiting in the airport.
"I called all the cell phone numbers I had and all the hotel numbers I had and they would either not take my call or their cell phones weren't working."
On Tuesday, Miller told MaxBoxing that he finally got a response from Ron Nash of Millenium Events.
"I finally got an email from them. It appeared across my screen late Friday night, I retrieved it early on Monday morning," explained Miller. "Finally, they have produced what they consider to be an accounting, but the accounting is fraught with error. First of all, they are trying to deduct and stick James with $1,000 worth of insurance from all three sanctioning bodies which is $3,000. When everyone knows that it's standard in the business that the promoter pays the inusurance because if the fighter dies, the promoter gets the insurance money. So there's $3,000 off there, there's another discrepency in that they contended that we were in Australia for 28 days, when in fact we were only there for 14 days and so they were trying to stick us with something like $4,200 worth of expenses, when at best, they were half of that."
Also, $40,000 was taken out for sanctioning fees, which Leija and his people knew about. But the biggest question they have has to do with the money that was deducted for tax purposes.
"They took out over $135,000 worth of taxes with no receipt of payment of the taxes, no itemization of the taxes was derived at, because we hadn't submitted to them what our expenses were," Miller continued. "And so when I did the math, they owe us the $5,100 that I spoke about earlier and probably another $50,000 more they should have paid taxes on and there's also going to be a big question about who did they pay it to. Where's the receipt and are they going to issue a 1099?"
Under the Muhammad Ali Act, fighters and their representatives are entitled to a full accounting of their money and purse deductions.
"I emailed them back several responses yesterday," said Miller of the ongoing situation, "and I haven't heard anything back from them. And I told them that if this thing isn't settled by Friday, then we'll have to go to the mat."
Attempts to reach Warton via email were unsuccessful.
DOWNED UNDER
That wasn't the only snafu suffered by Team Leija, who faced one obstacle after another in Australia.
First, he was to leave the States for Melbourne on January 3rd. He and his crew were at his home awaiting a Federal Express package (with his airline tickets) that was suppose to arrive by 10:30 in the morning for a 2:00 p.m. fight. It would never arrive as they found out later in the day that their flight had been changed -- without notification from the promoters -- to
the next day.
From there they would embark on a journey that took over 33 hours. From San Antonio they would hit Salt Lake City, Utah (with a five hour layover), then to Los Angeles, then to Sydney and then finally to Melbourne.
If that's not bad enough, in Los Angeles, there was a flight at the very next gate leaving 30 minutes earlier that was a non-stop flight to Melbourne. In Sydney, Leija and his people had to take off and carry their luggage for about a mile to re-check their bags and go through customs.
Then, while in Australia, Leija didn't get his meal money for the first five days. But that was only the beginning of Leija's 'Planes, Trains and Automobile's' like journey.
While Tszyu had the luxury of training inside the actual ring that was supposed to be used for their fight in a health club at the Telstra Dome, Leija had trouble finding a facility that would let him use a ring that was bigger than a phone booth. I guess this is what they mean by home country advantage.
Then the final kicker would come when Chuck Williams, a veteran WBC judge, was replaced by a Thai judge. When pressed for an explanation, Leija's representatives were told that because Leija was American, Williams, who is also from the U.S., would not be used. When it was pointed out that an Australian judge had been appointed, it was explained that Tszyu is Russian.
"****," said a member of Leija's camp, "doesn't that really make Jesse Mexican, then?"
Beware to any figher going 'Down Under', you may not have a g'day, mate.