THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605260211
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 141 lines
This fight could have it all. A legend in the twilight of his career. An undefeated rising star. Pride. Egos. Money.
Lots of money.
Last month, promoter Dino Duva told Pernell ``Sweetpea'' Whitaker to start training for a fall bout with Felix Trinidad. The fight promised to be one of the most attractive and lucrative in Whitaker's career. Both boxers would make career-high paydays of about $4 million, courtesy of HBO.
But negotiations reached an impasse 10 days ago. Now it appears that a Trinidad fight could go down alongside an unfulfilled rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez as one of the great disappointments of Whitaker's career.
``I have a feeling Whitaker-Trinidad may be one of those `What if?' fights that never takes place,'' says Seth Abraham, president and CEO of Time Warner Sports.
What happened? Why can't boxing's power brokers put together an attractive matchup that would line the fighters' pockets with millions, satisfy TV executives with fat ratings and entertain fight fans?
The reasons are simple and complex. A stew of big business and big egos, seasoned with back-room politics and backbiting.
Stuck in the middle are World Boxing Council welterweight champion Whitaker, 32, of Virginia Beach and International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Trinidad, 23, two men who just want to fight.
``They didn't try hard enough,'' Whitaker says about the deal makers. ``They've got to try harder.''
Each side will tell you how hard they tried. But the other guy scuttled the deal.
Duva has one version of the negotiations that broke off May 16. Trinidad promoter Don King has another.
This much is certain: King and Duva's company, Main Events, have a history so contentious and interminable it could be a miniseries. Throw in Abraham and HBO, whose boxing product he closely oversees, and you have still more hostility. King and Abraham had a falling out over Mike Tyson's future with the cable network in October 1990 and have not done business since.
But two possible deals brought together Duva, King and their attorneys at law offices in Manhattan for more than 20 hours on May 15 and 16. The agenda items: ironing out the settlement in which heavyweight Lennox Lewis would step aside to allow Tyson to fight Bruce Seldon, and consummating Whitaker-Trinidad.
They were 1 for 2.
``To me, it never looked like Whitaker-Trinidad was going to get done,'' said Pat English, the Main Events lawyer who attended the meeting. ``I think there's a lot of blame to go around here.
``The bottom line is maybe everyone's to blame, or no one's to blame. Maybe it's a deal that the people involved just couldn't make.''
What they apparently agreed to was $4 million for each fighter, co-promotional status on the bout and that the losing promoter would receive $500,000 from each of the winner's next two fights.
``I thought we had it pretty much worked out,'' King said late last week from his Ohio home. ``Dino and myself were in conceptual agreement.''
But here's the sticking point: HBO wanted options for broadcast rights on future Trinidad fights if he beat Whitaker. HBO refused to pay Trinidad $4 million if he would still be free to trot off to fight for its main TV boxing rival, Showtime.
``What's the advantage for HBO to pay for one fight?'' Whitaker co-manager Shelly Finkel said. ``If they were to build Trinidad's reputation and then lose him if he wins, they're fools.''
King puts his fighters on Showtime. He insists he was willing to let Whitaker-Trinidad go on HBO, which has Whitaker under contract. But King said HBO wanted to tie up Trinidad for a year.
``We were ready to go, but I'm not going to sell out Showtime,'' King said. ``I'm a 100 percent Showtime man.
``What they're saying is they don't want to do the match by putting some untenable conditions on it. The culprit in this picture is HBO.''
How many options did HBO want? Depends on whom you believe.
Duva says HBO conceded to just a Whitaker-Trinidad rematch. His attorney English says Abraham wanted at least four Trinidad options. King says it was three.
King says the stipulation about future options was sprung on him at the last minute when Duva called Abraham as they were about to close the deal.
Duva says King knew when discussions began at the end of March that HBO demanded options on future Trinidad fights.
``Don kept coming up with a new reason every time we talked - whether it was about money or the options - to not be able to make the fight,'' Duva says. ``King's good at that, he's good at coming up with smoke screens and flip-flopping. All he does is propagandize.''
Abraham surmises King threw up roadblocks at every turn because he does not want Trinidad (29-0) to fight Whitaker (38-1-1). Not yet, anyway.
Not until King knows what Chavez - another King fighter - does against Oscar De La Hoya on June 7. If the aging Chavez loses, chances are his career is virtually over, and ``Don has lost his trump card in the Mexican/Latin fight community,'' Abraham said.
But Trinidad, a Puerto Rican, is King's next Latin trump card. Abraham speculates King doesn't want to ``sacrifice'' Trinidad at this point. In other words, he says, King doesn't want to risk a fight with Whitaker that the younger fighter might lose. That would devalue Trinidad's earning power. And that, coupled with a Chavez loss, would cut into King's business.
``Mike Tyson is Fort Knox for Don, but he can only fight three or four times a year,'' Abraham says. ``Don's got to keep busy for himself and his organization. Trinidad is the No. 2 man in Don's boxing portfolio, and everybody else is tied for last.
``I've been doing business with King for a long time. I sort of know how to read his tea leaves. He doesn't want to make the Whitaker-Trinidad fight.''
Here comes King with a counterpunch.
``Sweetpea would fight a gorilla if you put him in there with one,'' King says, ``but his management is trying to extend his economic benefit in the evening of his career by not fighting Trinidad, because they know Trinidad would win.''
What happens next with Whitaker is unclear.
The WBC has mandated that his next fight be against little-known Wilfredo Rivera, whom he defeated last month in a split-decision title defense.
Boxing insiders consider King to be in cahoots with WBC president Jose Sulaiman. Duva and Abraham are certain King was behind the unusual mandate for a rematch, if for no other reason than the sheer sport of making life difficult for them.
Duva doesn't want the Rivera fight. HBO doesn't want the fight. Whitaker has emphatically said he will not fight Rivera, whom he regards as a subpar opponent. He said he'd rather relinquish his WBC title.
But Duva and Abraham said the fight probably will be made in September.
``If we can't make the Trinidad fight, it's stupid for Pernell to give up his title,'' Duva said.
After that, maybe De La Hoya. Maybe Trinidad.
Or maybe just more frustration as Whitaker watches the final phase of his career fritter away without the high-profile, high-stakes fights he craves.
Even the principals agree the impasse seems petty.
``It does if you step back,'' Abraham says. ``But it is not petty if you step into it like we do. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a very taught, tense chess game.
``It's not about stubborn pride. This is about the business of boxing and who has the best boxers and and how much they're paid.'' ILLUSTRATION: FILE COLOR PHOTOS
Caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between promoters are WBC
welterweight champ Sweetpea Whitaker, above, of Virginia Beach and
IBF welterweight champ Felix Trinidad, at right - two boxers who
want the fight to happen. Of the promoters, Whitaker said: ``They've
got to try harder.''
Graphic
THE POLITICS OF BOXING
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm] by CNB