Battles in the ring the easier ones for Duddy

Posted on | February 13, 2009 | No Comments

IRISHTIMES.COM

Thursday, February 12, 2009

AMERICA AT LARGE: Since falling out with Irish Ropes, the Derry fighter has become the object of an ugly lawsuit, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

WHEN EDDIE McLoughlin hired Patrick Burns to be John Duddy’s new trainer last summer he didn’t anticipate he might be inviting the fox into the henhouse, but in the view of the Mayo-born promoter, that’s pretty much how it worked out.

At Jack Dempsey’s pub off Herald Square in Manhattan yesterday, McLoughlin presided over a press luncheon officially launching what has become a New York staple – Irish Ropes’ annual St Patrick’s Day card at Madison Square Garden. This year’s edition will showcase not Duddy, but another Irish middleweight, Limerick’s Andy Lee, fighting three-time world title challenger Antwun Echols.

Barely four months had elapsed since, following another press conference in the same pub on October 8th, McLoughlin sent Duddy off to Burns’ Miami training camp to begin preparations for a November 21st tune-up bout against Sam Hill. Within weeks Duddy had a new de facto manager, Craig Hamilton, the seven-year-old relationship between the boxer and his promoter was in tatters, the Hill fight (along with an even more lucrative January bout against Ronald Hearns) had been scuttled, and Duddy’s contract with Irish Ropes was the object of an unpleasant lawsuit, filed in US District Court.

At the centrepiece of the court case, which alleges financial improprieties in Irish Ropes’ handling of the Derry middleweight’s affairs, Eddie and Duddy’s erstwhile manager Tony McLoughlin stand accused of being brothers.

The McLoughlins do not deny that relationship, but point out they were already brothers in 2006, when Duddy, in the presence of a representative of the New York State Athletic Commission, signed separate contracts with each. In fact, from 2003 until last autumn, Duddy lived, rent-free, in an apartment owned by Tony McLoughlin, who also provided the boxer with the use of a car and several hundred dollars a week living allowance.

When Duddy appeared at Madison Square Garden a week ago to announce his February 21st date with Matt Vanda, he thanked Hamilton, attorney Gary Friedman and author Thomas Hauser for having effected his nascent emancipation from Irish Ropes. Hauser, himself a lawyer, subsequently objected to our having described him in these pages as a Duddy “adviser”, calling that characterisation “a disservice” to Hamilton and Friedman.

“The only advice I gave to John came when [Duddy’s proposed fight against Verno Phillips] fell through and I told him he should become more proactive in terms of charting his own career,” said Hauser, whose 4,000-word treatise The Truth About John Duddy on the website SecondsOut.com has, in the absence of dissenting views, been widely cited as the definitive view of a complex situation.

“In that same conversation, in response to a question from John, I said I wasn’t the right person to ask about the intricacies of managing a fighter and suggested he talk with Craig Hamilton. John was already aware of Hamilton because Craig manages Kevin Burnett, and Burnett is trained by Pat Burns,” added Hauser.

Within days of that advice, Hamilton (and his long-time lawyer, Friedman) were in charge and Irish Ropes was on the way out. Burns acknowledges having vouched for Hamilton’s integrity, but he also denies having initiated the poaching expedition.

Following the debacle against Walid Smichet last February (Duddy eked out a majority decision but was cut to ribbons, and blew a $1.4 million payday to fight middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik), it was clear to McLoughlin and matchmaker Jim Borzell trainer Don Turner would have to go.

McLoughlin says that even before the Smichet fight Hauser, whose opinion he valued, had lobbied on several occasions for Burns to replace Turner.

While acknowledging a long-time relationship with Burns, Hauser says the Florida trainer’s name was just one of several, including those of Nazim Richardson and Freddie Roach, he put forth to Irish Ropes.

In any case, McLoughlin and Borzell flew to Miami and met with Burns. (That the promoter and his matchmaker and not the manager conducted the job interview with the new trainer underscores the blurring of traditional roles at Irish Ropes, but both McLoughlins insist they acted in Duddy’s best interests.)

“When I asked him about his fee, he said it was ‘No problem, just a few hundred bucks a week’,” recalled Eddie. “He also talked about John’s conditioning, and about accommodation down there. He said neither was a problem, since he had a brother who was a qualified nutritionist who would work, again, ‘for a couple of hundred a week,’ and that his wife would arrange to rent a house for just a thousand or so a month.”

“That is inaccurate,” Burns insisted yesterday. “I simply couldn’t work for ‘a few hundred’ a week,’ and I wouldn’t have said I would.”

In the wake of the Smichet fiasco it was also clear Duddy needed to redeem himself with a tune-up bout against an unthreatening opponent. Charlie Howe of Ohio, knocked out in the first round of his last fight, had a deceptively impressive 17-3-2 record and seemed to fit the bill perfectly. When the New York commission refused to approve Duddy-Howe, the venue was shifted to Boston. And Burns became Duddy’s new trainer.

Once Irish Ropes had severed connections with Turner, according to McLoughlin, the picture changed dramatically. Between his own weekly fee of $850 and another $650 for Joseph Burns, the “few hundred a week” had grown to $1,500, and the $1,000-a-month house turned out to cost $1,800 a month.

In Boston on June 28th last year Duddy fought well and posted a unanimous decision over the 33-year-old Howe. Because that fight was a low-budget exercise away from the scrutiny of television cameras, Irish Ropes had anticipated running the show at a loss, and Duddy had agreed to a $20,000 purse, and $5,000 for training expenses.

Burns insists the financial terms had been spelled out before he took the job. McLoughlin claims he wouldn’t have agreed to it if that had been the case.

A few days ago, Eddie McLoughlin sifted through a pile of cancelled cheques showing that in May and June of last year alone he had written checks totalling $21,000 to various permutations of the Burns family.

Under the arrangement, Burns’ fee was supposed to cover gym expenses. For the Howe fight, Duddy sparred at the Phantom Gym in Miami. Phantom manager Artie Artwell says that for that camp, Pat Burns paid $60 a month for the use of the gym.

Given the unhappy beginning to the relationship, McLoughlin says he no longer considered Burns trustworthy, but acceded to the fighter’s wishes only because Duddy felt comfortable with him.

So who’s telling the truth? Consider this: that October 8th press conference was a veritable love-fest between Duddy and Irish Ropes, yet less than two weeks later he had new representation. Somebody gave John Duddy Craig Hamilton’s phone number, and it’s a pretty safe bet it wasn’t Eddie McLoughlin.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times