Loretta Hunt of Sherdog.com is reporting that Don King Promotions has filed a legal injunction against Ricardo Mayorga and Shine Fights that seeks to prohibit Mayorga from participating at MMA’s Shine Fights 3: Worlds Collide card on Saturday, May 15th.
In its filings, DKP cites excerpts taken from Mayorga’s promotional agreement with the organization dated October 1, 2009, which states: “Fighter shall not participate in any bouts other than bouts promoted or co-promoted by Promoter or for which Promoter has granted Fighter prior written permission.”
Additional excerpts provided in the motion state Mayorga and his staff may not attend or participate in any “shows, interviews, programs, special events” or any related print, television, and Internet advertising opportunities without DKP’s approval.
In a copy of Mayorga’s promotional agreement provided by DKP with its motions, the contract states the promotion has “sole and exclusive rights to secure and arrange all professional boxing bouts” for Mayorga.
Payout Perspective:
In the piece, Hunt reveals that Don King Promotions issued two cease and desist orders to Mayora and Shine Fights; one on April 20th and one a week later on April 27th. When Shine Fights rejected the notice, King filed the injunction.
The legal rationale from King’s perspective is that he has an exclusivity clause that prohibits Mayorga from participating in any other boxing promotions and MMA involves boxing. Therefore, participating on the Shine Fights card would constitute a breach. (I’m not a lawyer, but I’d love to see this logic to applied to Section 83 of Canada’s Criminal Code…but that seems unlikely.)
While I’m not convinced that the exclusivity argument will hold, I do think King has a legitimate gripe in the sense that this MMA fight could potentially impact the ability of Mayorga to perform his contract with King in the future. If King can prove that the original intent of the exclusivity clause was to prohibit Mayorga from all forms of fighting, he may be able to secure the injunction.
But again, I’m not a lawyer and this is moving away from my area of expertise.
Mayorga is claiming King hasnt fullfilled the contract by giving Mayorga fights. Most contracts require a curtain amount of activing over a given time. Just because King has a contract dont mean he cant make him sit for 2 years for example and not breach the contract. If King did breach it Mayorga has grounds to terminate it. But this would take a court battle that will take a logn time. His fight with Din is more than likely going to ride on a judges interpretation of wether MMA is boxing. But Mayorga may lose this battle but win the war.