Why Has the Ghost Disappeared?

Why Has the Ghost Disappeared?
By Steve Kim (July 2, 2008) Photo © Laura De la Torre

On February 29th IBF featherweight champion Robert Guerrero impressively halted Jason Litzau in Lemoore, California in eight rounds. With the win, the young man who hails from nearby Gilroy had seemingly found his groove in the ring after some earlier inconsistencies, and 'The Ghost', as he is called, was coming into his own as one of the sport’s brightest young champions.

After losing the IBF title to Orlando Salido (who later flunked his post-fight urinalysis and was thus stripped of the title) in November of 2006, Guerrero - under the guidance of his father in the corner - had now put together three solid knockout victories, and along the way had re-captured the IBF crown he originally won against Erik Aiken in September of 2006. He had even played to a standing room only crowd at the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in his dismantling of Litzau.

It seemed as though they had all the momentum in the world.

So why are we into July and there are no sightings of 'The Ghost'?

"Ask Shelly," said the normally talkative promoter, Dan Goossen, who developed Guerrero from a fledgling prospect into a world champion. 'Shelly' would be one Shelly Finkel, who co-manages Guerrero alongside Bob Santos.

And why ask him?

"Ask Shelly," again is Goossen’s retort.

And that's because Guerrero filed for arbitration to free himself from his promotional pact with Goossen-Tutor. OK, why did he do that?

"Ask Shelly," was once again the reply. "Look, I don't have any answers, really I don't. I've been with Robert for awhile; hey, I'm speechless and that's a tough situation for me."

So that's exactly what we did - ask Shelly.

"There's hearings in three weeks and Robert Guerrero wanted to have an arbitration because he believes his contract is void," said the influential manager to Maxboxing. Asked why they wanted to void the contract, he would simply state, "I can't get into that."

But he did confirm that there were disagreements in the monies received and the amount of fights under their contract.

A well-informed source tells Maxboxing that Guerrero and Finkel are claiming violations in the Muhammad Ali Act and that they were disgruntled in having to face Spend Abazi in Denmark - on a show that was not promoted by Goossen-Tutor - to win back the IBF title in February of 2007. Also, there is a dispute as to whether Guerrero was injured during the course of this contract and therefore his availability to perform.

But you could argue that this isn't really Guerrero vs. Goossen-Tutor but a continuing conflict between Goossen and Finkel, who haven't always seen things eye-to-eye. In fact, this isn't the first time that Guerrero has filed for arbitration against his promoter since Finkel came on board back in 2004. They had a rocky relationship when they were both involved with Mike Tyson, when Goossen was the acting promoter and Finkel the adviser.

"I think it's been public knowledge on that," confirmed Goossen. "I just think some people are better suited for management, some better suited for training and some better suited for promotion. But when people try to cross over those lines, usually they end up making a multitude of mistakes, and certainly Shelly and I have had our disagreements with the crossover."

Finkel says there is no personal animosity on his side, he says that, "Dan knows that he didn't have a contract with Tony Thompson (who faces Wladimir Klitschko, a client of Finkel, on July 12th) and I dealt with him directly and Dan believes I had an issue. I wanted the kid to work a couple of things out and he said no."

But beyond that there seems to be a trend where Finkel is acting as the Harriet Tubman and creating an underground railroad for all his clients to make their way to Golden Boy Promotions. Many insiders believe that it's a foregone conclusion that Guerrero will end up at GBP, as they seem to be Finkel's promoter of the moment.

"That's not true though," he claims. "It's true that lately, I have, but people seem to forget that for awhile I was pretty much working with Arum, we had that fall out over Pacquiao. Before that I was working with Gary Shaw and before that people felt that I was exclusive - and I owned - Main Events. I've always felt comfortable working more preferably with one person, whoever that person is at that time."

Finkel adds, "I gotta tell you, the Guerrero situation, when it does come out, at the end it'll be one of two people in my head, who I have not spoken to."

Where Finkel takes his clients - whether to ten different promoters or one - is his prerogative, but what's alarming is that in recent months he has created trap doors of escape for fighters that had existing contracts with other promoters. Victor Ortiz, who was under the Top Rank banner, would suddenly file bankruptcy after affiliating himself with Finkel and would sign a deal with Golden Boy shortly thereafter. Guerrero is now under his second arbitration with Goossen-Tutor. It's widely believed that the first time around he would be scooped up by Shaw, who was working closely with Finkel at the time.

Initiating these legal proceedings on behalf of Guerrero is attorney Bruce Zadarauskas, who just happens to have represented Finkel for years. Which begs the question, just who is really disgruntled with Goossen-Tutor?

"He (Dan) believes I told the kid to leave him or had something to do with it and he doesn't want to believe what reality is," said Finkel, who added, "Robert has said to me that he would rather finish this arbitration and not fight then fight under these conditions and the way he was."

Then in a recent story on ESPN.com penned by Thomas Hauser, it seemed that Finkel was pushing for Lamont and Anthony Peterson to forego a superior deal with Top Rank to sign with Golden Boy. Eventually, against the wishes of Finkel, the Peterson brothers and their manager/trainer Barry Hunter made the decision to go with Top Rank. That case now is under arbitration.

So the question has to be asked, is Finkel acting in the best fiduciary interest of his clients, or as an agent for a single promoter? When you ask Goossen if this is all a guise for Guerrero to be led to Golden Boy, all he'll say (again) is, "Ask Shelly."

The arbitration hearing is set for July 25th according to Finkel, but it's not clear when Guerrero will be fighting inside of an actual boxing ring.

"This fall, hopefully," says Finkel, who added, "There's no deal with anyone or any discussions. So if he's free in August, I have to talk to people about where he would go in the fall."

The buzz from Guerrero's last outing is long forgotten. In fact, when he comes back it won’t even be as a world titlist, as he abdicated his IBF title and moved up to 130 pounds. Now Guerrero, who has fought just three times since the beginning of 2007, will sit out for at least a few more months. Precious time is being squandered on a career that has a limited life span.

"We take pride in promoting our fighters and trying to give them every opportunity to become world champions and eventually all the money and rewards that go with it," said a frustrated Goossen. "So whenever I got any fighter, whether or not it's him alone or in companionship with someone else, speaking to them, it's always disappointing because I like to have a good, rewarding relationship with our fighters. And close to 30 years, for the most part we've had that. So these are the type of situations that bring disappointment to me.

“Robert has always seemed like a good young man and you always like to perform for those types of fighters."

ANOTHER GHOST

Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik is learning the hard way about the price of fame and fortune as a disgruntled former investor/manager has threatened his life.

“He never really was a manager," clarified his real manager, Cameron Dunkin. "He had a management agreement for a short time and his contract ran out and he's bitter seeing Kelly be as successful as he is. He wants $600,000 of Kelly's money. So they’re in court right now and it's a pretty one-sided case. I don't think it's going to last long. So he's angry, he knows he's going to lose in court because he has no case and he's wrong.

"So now he's threatening to shoot Kelly and he just got arrested the other day on kidnapping. Him and a couple of guys went into somebody’s house, tied this guy to a chair and beat the hell out of him. He got arrested on that, so I don't know what his situation is on that. But now he goes, 'I got nothing to lose, I'm probably going to prison, so I'm going to kill Kelly.'"

The offending party’s name is Tony Scandi, whose agreement with Pavlik ran out in 2007, according to Dunkin.

"It ran out before the big fights and he wanted to re-sign him and Kelly wasn't going to re-sign with him and Kelly had given him money and everything. I mean, these guys, there are two partners, they never showed up to two or three fights, they never discussed an opponent, they don't know anything about boxing. They're just local guys that knew him and they wanted to be involved with him and before everything got going, they kept saying, 'We want to be involved and we just want to help you as a friend.' It was one of those deals."

According to Pavlik's father, a restraining order was taken out on Monday.

"He's taking this serious; anytime anybody makes a threat you have to take it serious," said Mike Pavlik from Youngstown, Ohio. "He's more or less afraid, not for himself, but for his family. He's been laying low."

As for his future inside the ring, Dunkin admits that it's murky.

"We're just sitting and waiting, we don't know. I guess John Duddy said this morning he's going to fight in Ireland against Verno Phillips. But that's today, he said it last week and changed his mind and came back to the table, I don't know what's going on with Sergio Mora. We really don't know anything. Everything is sort of up in the air. Now Marco Antonio Rubio's name is starting to be circulated again. We just don't know anything, we gotta let it play out."

As for IBF titlist, Arthur Abraham, "I think that's a next year fight, I don't think it's this year," stated Dunkin. "He's gotta fight Raul Marquez and he's gotta take care of his mandatory. He's got a television deal in Germany, he's gotta stay over there and fight and the only way he can come to America this year is if he loses a purse bid. And we're not in a purse bid, we're not the IBF.

"So I don't see that fight happening this year and I think it needs time anyway. I think he needs to come here a couple more times. We're not going to hide from it; it's the toughest fight out there. It's the two best middleweights in the world and I think I got the best and it's a great fight. But it's gotta be a fight that you get paid."

Bob Arum mentioned that they would look at the results of this weekend’s bout between WBA titlist Felix Sturm and Randy Griffin to see if any possibilities exist of fighting the winner.

MID-WEEK FLURRIES

As for a Manny Pacquiao-Edwin Valero fight, Arum says, "That's going to happen." And it will take place on either November 8th or the 15th on pay-per-view....There is some talk that newly minted WBC 140-pound titlist Tim Bradley could be making his initial defense versus Juan Urango and it could come underneath Nate Campbell-Joan Guzman on September 13th on Showtime....A source tells me that a bout between Vicente Escobedo and Jesus Chavez is being discussed for the Golden Boy pay-per-view show on September 13th....With Baron Davis signing with the Clippers, Los Angeles now has two NBA franchises....Folks, the Tampa Bay Rays are for real......

For Questions or Comments
E-Mail Steve Kim at k9kim@maxboxing.com

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