Prominent boxing promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing filed a lawsuit last month against Jake Paul for defamation after Paul, in an interview, accused Matchroom of paying off a boxing judge, who is now also suing Paul.
Glenn Feldman, a prolific and well-known boxing judge, is joining Hearn’s lawsuit against Paul with his own complaint, seeking separate damages, attorney Frank Salzano told ESPN. The new defamation complaint was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, according to a document obtained by ESPN.
Hearn and Matchroom are seeking more than $100 million in damages, Salzano said last month. It’s unclear how much Feldman is seeking, though it is more than the $75,000 jurisdictional requirement.
“[Paul’s] statements have harmed Feldman’s reputation in the public, impute the commission of a crime, and/or call into question Feldman’s fitness to perform his work in his trade and profession,” Salzano wrote in the complaint.
Paul said in an interview last month with IFL TV that he believed Feldman was getting paid by Matchroom to judge bouts in favor of that promotion’s fighters. Feldman was a judge on a bout between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor in New York on April 30 and also scored the Oleksandr Usyk vs. Anthony Joshua rematch on Aug. 20 in Saudi Arabia.
Taylor won a split decision, with two judges, including Feldman, ruling in favor of her. Usyk also won a split decision, with Feldman the only judge scoring the bout for Joshua. Taylor and Joshua are Matchroom fighters. Serrano is part of Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions and Paul and Hearn co-promoted Taylor vs. Serrano, the first female boxing headliner at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s like a repeated crime here,” Paul told IFL TV. “This type of s—, I’m going to call it out here in boxing because it’s bulls—. Clearly, this guy [Feldman] is getting paid money by Matchroom Boxing.”
Salzano’s complaint noted that Feldman, who works primarily in Nevada and New York, has been a boxing judge since 1992; he has presided over 1,200 boxing matches and was inducted into the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. Feldman, whose full-time job is as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch, has scored major fights like Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in 2015, Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin 2 in 2018 and Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder 2 in 2020.
A representative for Paul was not immediately available for comment Monday night. Paul, the YouTube star-turned-prizefighter and promoter, will compete in a big pay-per-view main event boxing match Saturday against UFC legend Anderson Silva in Glendale, Arizona.
“Punitive and exemplary damages are necessary in this case to deter [Paul] and others from wantonly and maliciously using a campaign of lies to discredit Feldman and other boxing judges,” Salzano wrote in the complaint.
Source: www.espn.com