Black Hitler - Boxing And The Anti-PBC Effect
By Jake Donovan
As is supposed to be the case with anything related to the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) movement, the big news that came out of Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday, January 18 was supposed to be all about the boxers involved in said announcement.
Instead, a press conference held to reveal the long-awaited showdown between unbeaten welterweights Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia ultimately gave way to the profanity-laced, racist and homophobic rants of a hot-headed trainer who can't seem to get out of the way of a microphone or his own public ego.
Angel Garcia's maniacal rant has been rightly vilified by the boxing media, with every major outlet calling for the immediate removal of the Philadelphia-based trainer from the forthcoming March 4 event at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The venue also played host to the aforementioned press conference and said incident.
On this occasion, the media did its job in calling attention to a despicable act. Because the event was streamed live in addition to updates coming from reporters onsite, you’d like to believe that details of the occurrence would have been documented regardless of the offending party.
Unfortunately, history – in particular, the past couple of years up to and including present time – suggest otherwise.
Conveniently lost in the shuffle over the past couple of weeks is the latest development in the ongoing $300 million lawsuit filed by Golden Boy Promotions against Haymon and his enterprise in 2015. The matter is due to go to trial beginning March 14 at the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
In previous months and years, developments as they occurred have been immediately reported by various outlets. The main motivation, perhaps, was the fact that it was seen as means to get full disclosure on all matters Haymon, by and large an extremely private person who almost never speaks to the press.
It can only explain why so few in the media even batted an eyelash over the latest development. The assigned March 14 court date should provide means for a major news story to those who were quick to attack the topic in the past. However on this round, the latest findings cast Golden Boy in a negative light.
To date, the only journalist to fully expose the matter was BloodyElbow.com analytics and business writer Paul Gift – aptly surnamed, given his extraordinary knack for bringing you inside a courtroom or business meeting through his words.
His January 13 investigative report exposed the efforts made by Golden Boy Promotions to have excluded from the case a chain of 15 e-mails exchanged between veteran publicist Ramiro Gonzalez and boxing writer Hesiquio Balderas, the bulk of which discusses the latter’s articles on Haymon’s movements in the industry as well as how to rally more English-speaking websites (naming this site and FightNews.com as hopeful targets) for the cause.
In no fewer than two replies refer to Haymon as “Black Hitler” and another where – upon reviewing a story link submitted by Gonzalez – insists that his own “article goes deeper into what that n****r (referring to Haymon) is doing.”
According to court documents – of which a copy has been obtained by BoxingScene.com - additional email exchanges were introduced to the motion hearing, involving participation from several Golden Boy employees including company founder Oscar de la Hoya. Included among the lot was a plan discussed between Golden Boy and an outside agency hired on retainer, to:
- highlight instances where Haymon-advised fighters failed a drug test, including but not limited to intentionally yet anonymously leaking said results to select media members;
- leverage in its favor an at-the-time active investigation into Haymon’s alleged practice of venue squatting;
- launch a “high-level public affairs campaign to encourage and force the Commission and other California law enforcement entities to actively investigate Al Haymon and Premier Boxing Champions.”
The last of the aforementioned operatives was known as the “California Strategy”, with plans to (taken directly from the court documents):
- Identify key California legislators and Chairs of key Committees with jurisdiction over promoters and boxing;
- Set-up private dinners/meetings with Oscar De La Hoya and Top Rank executives to outline the issue and problem affecting California;
- Once (Golden Boy has) a champion or champions for our issue, have an informational hearing with Oscar testifying (this will generate a lot of buzz and media attention);
- At the same… organize legislative letters and constituent letters urging the California Attorney General and the Boxing Commission to look into the illegal and anti-competitive actions of Premier Boxing Champions and Al Haymon; and
- Organize press and media around these events.
As the plaintiff, Golden Boy’s contention (through its legal team) was that the defendant’s (Haymon and his companies) goal in introducing the 15 emails was “solely for the purpose of seeking to impute Mr. Balderas’ inflammatory comments to Golden Boy, and thereby inflame the passions of the jury.”
Haymon’s legal team countered that “[t]he Balderas [e-]mails were an aspect of a public relations smear campaign that Golden Boy launched in mid-2015 to spread negative stories about Defendant Alan Haymon and Haymon[-]managed fighters. Defendants have and continue to maintain that this lawsuit, the related arbitration, and the press surrounding them is part of that same smear campaign.”
In essence, the argument made by Haymon’s side is that it has been Golden Boy’s unwillingness to do business with the advisor following their nasty split and subsequent settlement in 2004, and not the other way around.
Gift’s January 13 story exposed some of the details while highlighting other trial matters. It was further discussed on the January 16 edition of the popular boxing podcast “The Morning Punch-In Show with RB and Jae”, run by marketing strategist Michelle “Raging Babe” Rosado and BlackSportsOnline.com reporter Jeandra “Jae” LeBeauf) and with that particular segment featuring Gift as a guest to further dissect his story and the court case in particular.
Other than websites that have previously published Balderas’ work scrubbing its timeline clean, it has otherwise been radio silence from the boxing media.
Rather than digging in and following up on a court case that many outlets have previously tracked, focus was instead shifted toward recently occurred and upcoming major fights as well as other developments.
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cause he simply cannot dance to these mumble rappers songs anymore and the kids look at him as some out of touch old man.
