Tyson Card Co-Promoters Headed for Legal Bout!

There were a lot of rumors surrounding the following story. A lot of stories came out along the grapevine concerning lack of funds to pay boxers who participated in the June 11 Tyson-McBride card at MCI Center. Now comes the following story from Fightnews.com:

Marty Wynn/Raging Promotions, co-promoter of the June 11 Mike Tyson-Kevin McBride fight in Washington DC has filed a $19.8 million lawsuit against co-promoter Darryl Stuckey/Stuckey Group LLC, SunTrust Bank and SHOWTIME Network.

According to the suit, Raging Promotions and the Stuckey Group were to split revenues from the fight 50/50. The Stucky Group allegedly was responsible for raising $1.3 million for SHOWTIME's marketing costs plus $5 million from private investors to secure and guarantee Mike Tyson for the event, but instead met SHOWTIME's marketing costs with pre-event sale money, and in collusion with an employee at SunTrust Bank, wrote over $3 million in bad checks to guarantee Tyson.

None of the fighters that night were paid in full and checks given to Tyson bounced. The suit states that SunTrust Bank agreed to make a secret loan of $4.275 million to Stuckey Group to cover the fraudulent checks given to Tyson and the other fighters without the knowledge of the media or public. To guarantee the loan, Stuckey allegedly signed over the rights to the SHOWTIME proceeds to the bank. Wynn maintains, however, that SunTrust Bank was not authorized to demand his portion of the revenues from SHOWTIME and that the network should not have released the funds to the bank without his signature as CEO of Raging Promotions. He says Raging Promotions invested over $600,000 in the event and is seeking $4.8 million in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages.

Wynn, whose promotional company put on some of the better cards seen around the Beltway in recent years, recently dealt with financial difficulty as he had his promotional license revoked in Maryland earlier this year because he owed money to the Maryland State Athletic Commission concerning the Laila Ali show at Prince George's Stadium in 2004.