Top Rank Boxing is being sued by a formal ally as William Keane has sued the promotion and Todd duBoef for alleged Breach of Contract among other claims in a filing in federal court in California.
Keane worked with Top Rank as a “fixer” of sorts as he was able to broker fights on behalf of Top Rank. Keane’s attorneys stress how he worked to get Amir Khan to fight Terence Crawford and was a major part of Top Rank getting a lucrative media deal with ESPN. Keane’s main argument is that duBoef failed to live up to the Top Rank deal with him by lowering his “finder’s fees.”
Keane targets duBoef as the leader taking over for Bob Arum that lowered his percentage of fees.
In the lawsuit, Keane describes a 2018 meeting with Arum about signing fighters to Top Rank and that he would pay Keane directly for his efforts.
After Keane had secured the Amir Khan-Terence Crawford fight Todd duBoef approached Keane about reducing his fees and renegotiate the 2018 Arum Agreement. Essentially, they were (allegedly) reneging on the 10% fee promised because (as the lawsuit claims) duBoef did not think they could land a high-profile opponent for Crawford. Notably, Khan was paid more than Top Rank had budgeted for Crawford’ opponent.
The lawsuit goes on to discuss Keane’s recruitment of Tyson Fury which involved dealing with his advisor Daniel Kinahan. The noted crime boss lived in Dubai and informed Keane of what it would take to sign Fury to the Top Rank stable. Essentially, Kinahan wanted a percentage of the purse proceeds. Keane alleges that duBoef told him to conceal the relationship with Kinahan from ESPN.
As one of Keane’s claims for relief, he’s requesting an accounting of fight purses as well as the alleged renegotiated agreement which is described below.
Payout Perspective:
Obviously there will be two sides to this story. Keane is mad because he feels that duBoef short-changed him by taking less of what he believes he was expected to receive based on representations from Bob Arum. Keane argues that duBoef tried to renegotiate after he had performed the work. Certainly, duBoef and Top Rank will deny Keane’s allegations especially the affiliation with Kinahan and telling him not to let ESPN know of it. Also, this lawsuit alleges a potential loophole in the Ali Act where a manager is surreptitiously working with a promoter to sign fighters for the promotion while managing them. This would violate the firewall identified in the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act.
MPO will continue to monitor.
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