Last week, King filed a lawsuit in Florida seeking to stop Mayorga (pictured) from fighting Shane Mosley in a fight scheduled for August 29th in the Los Angeles area. King's court papers do not say that King has any other fight scheduled for Mayorga. If King takes the witness stand, he cannot say that he has promoted any major fight for Mayorga in the last five years or that he has done anything at all recently to advance Mayorga's career or earn him any money.  

Instead, King will seek to have Mayorga barred from fighting on the basis that Mayorga allegedly signed an exclusive promotional agreement in July 2014. 

King's legal papers do not mention a signing bonus or anything else of value given to Mayorga in exchange for signing the contract. In fact, the contract submitted by King recites that, as compensation for signing, Mayorga received the sum of ten dollars.  Ten dollars.  

Despite all this, King a semi-retired multi-milionaire, will ask the judge to prevent the 41 year-old impoverished Mayorga from earning a living because, well, just because.   

If the judge has either a sense of justice or a sense of compassion, he will deny King's request for a preliminary injunction.

The requirements of a preliminary injunction are lacking from King's lawsuit: in order to obtain the preliminary injunction, King must convince the judge that he, King, would be irreparably harmed if Mosley-Mayorga II went forward.  Incredibly, King's legal papers claim the irreparable harm is that, "Mayorga is at risk of substantial physical harm, and in turn, will damage the reputation and goodwill of DKP by diluting or compromising it ability to promote Mayorga in future bouts."  

Yes, you read that correctly. King is arguing that HE will be irreparably harmed because Mayorga might be injured by Mosley.  

Mayorga already has eight losses in his career. Everyone in boxing already knows what he is, a limited but entertaining brawler who makes exciting fights and gives his all. Would a ninth loss really make him less marketable? Would it really hurt Kings (non-existent) efforts to promote him.

In fact, if the judge blocks Mayorga from fighting, it is Mayorga who will be irreparably damaged. Saddled with an inactive promoter who does not get fights for him, the chance for a rematch with Shane Mosley presents an almost unique opportunity for the 41 year-old Mayorga to cash in on his past glory. A win over Mosley would put Mayorga back in the mix as an opponent for other big-name fighters.

A preliminary injunction should not be granted if the party seeking it can be made whole with monetary damages.  When Mayorga fought Oscar De La Hoya in 2006 and Miguel Cotto in 2011, King was not the lead promoter for either show.  He was compensated with what is known in the business as a provision of services payment.  There is no reason why such a payment could not satisfy King for this fight, particularly since his semi-retirement status means he is almost never the lead promoter any more. An injunction also should not be issued where the party seeking it has "unclean hands", a legal term for questionable conduct.

King's legal papers also fail to discuss the effect a preliminary injunction would have on innocent third parties who have invested or stand to make money from the August 29th show.  These parties include the venue, the pay-per-view broadcaster, Mayorga and Mosley's trainers, the undercard fighters, and others, all of whom would suffer if the judge improvidently granted King's injunction.

Back in 2002, Mayorga, promoted by King, won the WBA welterweight title.  In 2003, he became the world champion by defeating Vernon Forrest (who had become the champion by defeating Mosley). While with King, Mayorga, a Nicaraguan with little or no formal education, had a good run of big fights through 2008, although one suspects King badly underpaid him at the time. Since a 2011 loss to Cotto, the well has run dry for Mayorga, and he has had only two minor fights, both wins, in 2014. King's papers do not mention either of the 2014 fights, so it is reasonable to assume King did not lift a finger to make either one of them happen. All he has done is come out of the woodwork to cause problems for Mayorga and Mosley.

King previously went to court to stop a desperate Mayorga from earning a mixed martial arts payday in 2010.

As the  lawsuit was only filed Friday, it is not known if Mayorga will be represented by an attorney at the hearing.  He does not speak English, and according to the contract submitted by King, Mayorga does not even appear to have a manager. However, Mosley and his promotional company were named as defendants, and Mosley has said that an attorney will be in court to oppose King's request for the preliminary injunction. 

"Mosley vs. Mayorga II is going to happen," Mosley told the website badlefthook.com.  "There is no way we are going to let Don King destroy everything we have worked for just to line his pockets with a frivolous lawsuit."

Mosley also told Scott Christ of badlefthook.com that, based on a comparison to other documents, Mayorga's signature may have been forged. King denied that claim.

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UPDATE, Aug. 20th:  Mosley's request for an extension of time was denied, but it did contain one interesting defense: "Mayorga maintains that his signatures on certain documents at the heart of [Don King's] claim were forged. Accordingly, he needs sufficient time to retain a forensic handwriting expert... [we] have already begun this process."

 

Mosley will interrupt his training camp and fly to Miami for the preliminary injunction hearing Thursday. Mosley tweeted, "I am inviting the public & the press to come to Miami Federal court [Thursday] at 9 am to listen to facts and ensure the judge is fair and unbiased. [Go to] 400 North Miami Ave., Judge Kathleen Williams, Room 11-3 at 9 am tomorrow morning! I will be there & so will lying ass Don King."

 

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UPDATE, Aug. 21st: The fate of the bout is still up in the air as the preliminary injunction hearing concluded in Miami yesterday, and the parties are awaiting Judge Kathleen Williams’ ruling.

 

According to papers filed by Mosley’s legal team, King attended the hearing, but his attorneys did not call him as a witness. Instead, King’s long-standing lieutenant Dana Jamison testified on behalf of DKP. Mosley’s court submissions indicated that on cross examination, Jamison admitted that Mayorga was not retired from 2010 through 2014 as DKP previously claimed. This is significant because the contract that DKP is trying to enforce requires the company to provide a Mayorga with three fights per year. We know Mayorga did not have three fights per year, so if Mayorga was not retired (as Jamison seems to have admitted), DKP will be hard pressed to explain how it complied with the contract it is seeking to enforce in court.

When Mosley took the stand, he testified that he knew Mayorga fought on September 27, 2014 as part of a show that Don King had no involvement in, and that he (Mosley) relied on DKP allowing the fight to proceed as evidence that Mayorga was free to fight on August 29th. Mosley also testified that when his attorneys were first contacted by King’s attorneys, he asked for proof that Mayorga was under contract to DKP, but King failed to respond. Court records indicate that Mayorga also took the witness stand, but the substance of his testimony is unknown at this time.

Despite the problems with DKP’s case, the court seems to be considering granting the injunction if you read between some of the lines in Mosley’s legal papers. Judge Williams apparently expressed some concern that denying an injunction would potentially sanction what the Court believes is a history of Mayorga breaching his own contractual obligations. King's attorneys showed the court some recent tweets that Mosley made, which would likely be unhelpful to Mosley's defense. There was also testimony that King gave Mayorga a check for $2000 which was not mentioned in King's contract. Mayorga denied endorsing the check.

 

Still, if King can be compensated by monetary damages, the law is clear that an injunction should not be issued. Since King rarely promotes his own shows these days, monetary compensation is all he could realistically expect, at least in the real world. Boxingtalk will continue to follow the situation.

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