On July 30th, Manny Pacquiao's attorney, Dale Kinsella, addressed a lawsuit that was attempting to block Pacquiao's August 21st challenge of Errol Spence Jr. for the WBC and IBF championships. Kinsella decried the "the complete sham nature of Paradigm’s complaint" and said he was looking forward to exposing Paradigm’s conduct. While the lawsuit is not over, Kinsella delivered on his prediction and scored a major legal victory in California court last week, defeating a preliminary injunction that cleared the way for the big fight to go forward.
A brief history of the dispute: an eight-division champion and future Hall of Famer, Pacquiao signed a contract with Audie Attar's Paradigm Sports Management in 2020. The contract was amended multiple times during 2020, but Pacquiao has been inactive from 2019. On June 25th, with the Spence fight looming, Paradigm sued Pacquiao, alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and seeking declaratory relief. Among other requests, Paradigm sought a preliminary injunction that would have barred Pacquiao from participating in the scheduled August 21st bout in Las Vegas against Spence.
Last week, Paradigm lost its bid to halt the big pay-per-view fight: "The court finds that Plaintiff [Paradigm] has not sufficiently shown a probability or prevailing on breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing causes of action."
The primary reason for the ruling was that Pacquiao had an earlier agreement with TGB Promotions, and the Paradigm agreement stated it was "subject to previous contracts already signed and previous negotiations already commenced by [Pacquiao] prior to the signing of this contract... Thus, under the terms of the agreement with Paradigm, Paradigm’s contractual relationship with TGB Promotions had priority over Pacquiao’s contractual relationship with Paradigm." Although branded under the Premier Boxing Champions banner, Tom Brown's TGB Promotions is the official promoter of the fight, along with MP Promotions and Man Down Promotions.
The court also ruled that Paradigm can continue to sue Pacquiao for money damages.
