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My money Trainers, relatives fighting over Moorer contract dispute
Posted: Friday December 17, 1999 05:14 PM
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The lifetime contract that former heavyweight champion Michael Moorer and his grandfather signed at a kitchen table in 1986 was trumped by a deal with professional managers to years later, a judge ruled Thursday. During Moorer's civil trial in federal court, U.S. District Judge William Standish told jurors to ignore the older deal and said it does not apply to 79-year-old Henry Smith's allegation that he was shortchanged for work as a trainer. The 1986 deal called for Smith, a former boxer and steel-mill worker who has a sixth-grade education and 10 children, to be paid 25 percent of Moorer's earnings. He said he taught Moorer to punch and gave him rides to his early fights. Moorer, 32, is expected to testify Monday. The judge's decision leaves jurors to consider a 1988 contract with manager John Davimos and trainer Emanuel Steward, who also worked with Thomas Hearns, that promised to pay Smith 10 percent of Moorer's earnings if he worked as a trainer and 5 percent if he did nothing. Smith's initials are on a handwritten supplement to that deal. The judge earlier ruled against Smith's allegation that Davimos told him in 1992 that he would be "taken care of" and that the remark represented a binding contract. Moorer, a Pennsylvania native who has earned an estimated $27 million, beat Evander Holyfield for the IBF and WBA titles in 1994 but was knocked out by George Foreman later that year. He has a 39-2 record, has not fought since 1997 and hopes to fight next year. Smith's son, Vaughn, also a former boxer, said Smith taught Moorer a spin move off the ropes that Moorer used to elude Holyfield in 1994. "That's a basic move that all world-class fighters know," Davimos countered. Moorer dropped Smith from a renegotiated contract in 1993. Unhappy with Davimos, he courted another manager, Shelley Finkel, who now represents Mike Tyson. Davimos testified that Finkel paid Moorer about $75,000 to try to woo him that year and was given a piece of the new deal with Davimos. Davimos, whose company JEB Enterprises is also a defendant, said Smith never worked as a trainer during Moorer's rise and often badgered him for money between 1988 an 1993, sometimes 10 minutes before a fight. He said Smith got in Steward's way and gave contrary advice. "We had paid Henry Smith for 10 years basically for being Michael Moorer's grandfather, and we made him a lot of money, and he wasn't doing anything," Davimos said. "He was no longer a part of the business. We felt he was Michael Moorer's problem." He said Smith was paid more than 5 percent of Moorer's earnings of $1.3 million while Smith was o the contract. Five percent of the earnings would be $65,700, and Smith was paid $64,850 plus about $20,000 in airline and fight tickets, hotel room and meal money, Davimos said. Davimos told Smith's lawyer, Richard DiSalle, that Smith was still occasionally paid after the contract ran out when Moorer wanted $500 in checks sent to him. Some of those checks said "advance for contract," and DiSalle said that led Smith to believe that he still had a deal. The plan was for Moorer to reimburse JEB but that didn't always happen. "We might have just eaten it. It was just $ 500. We weren't always down to the penny on money," Davimos said. He said Smith was allowed in the corner during Moorer's early ights and yelled advice to Moorer in the ring. But he said that Steward, who broke with Moorer in 1993, ran the show. "If you listen to a tape of the Holyfield fight, you can hear my wife, Lisa, yelling over and over again, `Go to the jab!' That doesn't make her a trainer," Davimos said. He said JEB Enterprises had taken a $ 500,000 loss on Moorer until the Holyfield fight and often did not collect 50 percent of his purses, as allowed in the 1988 contract, because the company viewed him as a long-term investment.
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