Self-proclaimed "boxing veteran" William Keane has sued Top Rank and Top Rank executive Todd duBoef for over $25 million. Keane claims he made a mostly oral agreement with Top Rank CEO Bob Arum that would pay Keane 10% of all the purses earned by boxers that Keane brought to Top Rank. According to his lawsuit, Keane is entitled to money from fights involving Tyson Fury, Josh Taylor, Amir Khan and Carl Frampton. Keane says that as Arum's role in Top Rank receded, duBoef, who is Arum's stepson, refused to honor the agreement. The lawsuit is particularly negative towards duBoef, referring to him as a racist.
As for Keane's relationship with Arum, the lawsuit alleges that Arum promised that "Keane only needed to bring fighters to Top Rank and Top Rank would pay Keane 10% of every dollar those fighters earned, mimicking what he would be making as a manager but selling Keane on how much easier it would be. Arum was clear that Keane’s fee would not be based on or affected by Top Rank’s earnings. Even if Top Rank lost money promoting a fight, if Keane’s fighter got paid, Keane would receive ten percent of the fighter’s purse directly from Top Rank." In 2019, Keane says duBoef "conned" him into reducing his percentage from 10% to 5%.
Keane also alleges:
Here is Keane's introduction to his 36-page lawsuit, which was filed on Feb. 27th in the Central District of California:
In the business of professional boxing, Keane is tantamount to a Swiss Army knife -- an extremely well-connected fixer with all the right tools. Top Rank’s legendary co-founder and CEO, Bob Arum said as much in March 2019 when he publicly credited Keane for securing the then-upcoming Top Rank-promoted, ESPN fight between Amir Khan and Terence Crawford: "When we were trying to make Crawford-Khan, we were having difficulties with Khan because he was in Pakistan, he was here, he was there, and frankly, we have so much on our plate that we can't spend the days and weeks with a fighter that Billy [Keane] did with Amir Khan. That was the craziest negotiations. Every time Khan asked for this extra and that extra, Billy [Keane] would call us up and we’d either say, 'Okay, you can offer it to him' or 'No, you can't!' He really put the hours and the days and the time in with Amir Khan, and that eventually led to a contract with Khan to fight Terence Crawford.
Nine months before Arum publicly lauded Keane’s role in securing the Crawford-Khan bout, Keane had already proven to be Top Rank’s most valuable resource. Indeed, but for Keane’s efforts, Top Rank likely would not have been able to secure (and certainly would not have been able to satisfy the demanding terms of) an extremely lucrative extension of its 2017 Media Rights Agreement with ESPN -- by far the company’s main source of revenue. Moreover, because (a) Arum (who turned 93 in December 2024) recently assumed an emeritus role at Top Rank, (b) ESPN’s brass does not respect Arum’s hand-picked successor (Top Rank President duBoef, Arum’s stepson), and (c) the boxing community at large does not respect or take duBoef seriously, Top Rank effectively depended on Keane to keep its frequently challenged ESPN relationship from unraveling and to help it secure desperately needed talent.
In theory, the deal Keane made with Arum back in June 2018 fairly compensated Keane for the rather unique services Top Rank sorely needed him to render. At the time, Arum (then, still at the helm) was attempting to finalize negotiations to extend and substantially enrich the 2017 Top Rank/ESPN media rights agreement. As a consequence, the already palpable pressure Top Rank was under to sign big-name talent was intensifying, as was Arum’s need to convince ESPN that Top Rank was up to the challenge. Arum—aware that Keane had the ability to recruit championship-level fighters and also enjoyed an extremely close relationship with top ESPN executives—desperately needed Keane’s help. Accordingly, Arum promised Keane that for each fighter he brought into the Top Rank fold, Top Rank would pay him ten percent of that fighter’s earnings (the “2018 Arum Deal”) and assured Keane that he no longer would have to rely on or chase a fighter for compensation. Arum was clear that Keane’s ten percent would be paid out of Top Rank’s earnings rather than the fighter’s earnings.
Even though Keane undeniably held up his end of the deal, he has not received the benefit of the bargain he struck with Arum for two reasons. First, duBoef— who subsequently took over the Top Rank reins— conned Keane into cutting his finders’ fee in half. Second, to add insult to injury, duBoef distanced himself from Keane and failed to pay Keane any portion of the money he is owed. Notably, duBoef has never claimed that Keane does not have a binding agreement, nor has he ever disputed that Keane is owed millions of dollars for the services rendered at Top Rank’s request. Rather, Keane is informed and believes that duBoef decided to hoard and conserve Top Rank’s cash, right after ESPN advised him that Top Rank’s $90 million/year ESPN media rights agreement will not be renewed once it expires in August 2025. Regardless of the reason, duBoef failed to keep his word. To Keane, nothing else matters. duBoef has forced Keane to expose the depths of duBoef’s duplicity and ineptitude, and fight to collect every dollar he earned and unquestionably deserves.
