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Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis has asked a federal court to declare that he no longer owes any obligations to his American promoter, Main Events. “For a variety of reasons, neither Lennox Lewis nor Lion Promotions wants Main Events involved in Lewis’ career, and Lewis
contends he has no contractual obligations to Main Events,” said Lewis in legal papers filed in the Southern District of New York earlier this morning.

According to the suit, the genesis of the dispute dates back to 1998, when Lewis’ signature on an agreement between Lewis, HBO and Main Events was forged by one of his former promoters, Panos Eliades. Earlier this year, Lewis won a multi-million dollar judgment against
Eliades. Lion Promotions has subsequently replaced Eliades’ company, Panix, as Lewis’ “main” promoter.

Lewis admits that Main Events obtained his actual signature in mid-2000 when the forgery was discovered, but Lewis claims the mid-2000 signature binds him only to HBO and not to Main Events. “The 2000 ratification [by Lewis] specifically contemplated that Lewis might not use Main Events as his promoter,” according to the complaint.

Judd Burstein, Lewis’ attorney who filed the suit on Lewis’ behalf, told Fightnews.com, “This is a plain vanilla contractual interpretation issue. It seeks only a declaration of what the parties’ rights are.” The lawsuit made no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Main Events and is
not seeking any damages.

Meanwhile, Pat English, Main Event’s attorney, called the suit “a colossal screw-up.” Speaking from a boat somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean, English said, “It stems from people who don’t return phone calls and therefore don’t know what’s going on.”

There is another contract, signed later in 2000, just before Lewis fought David Tua, that English says binds Lewis to Main Events. But English did concede that “there is an amicable disagreement” about the terms of that document.

What would Lewis do if he got the declaratory judgment he seeks from the court? There has been some speculation that Lewis is interested in signing with Gary Shaw, who recently left Main Events and started his own company but Burstein refused comment on that issue. “We
are not prepared to say anything other than that the suit is designed to get a determination of what we already believe to be the case- that Lennox is free to sign with whomever he chooses.” Shaw also declined comment, but for those who like to speculate, consider that Burstein represents both Lewis and Shaw in separate cases (Shaw is involved in litigation with his former employer concerning Jeff Lacy). Lewis can also have Lion Promotions promote him single-handedly or, if the dispute is truly amicable, could use a declaratory judgment to renegotiate a deal with Main Events on more favorable terms.

Lewis’ request that the court decide the validity of his contract is unusual in the world of boxing where a fight can be put together more quickly than a trial. Coincidentally, another odd method of changing promoters was announced today when Cedric Kushner assigned to Don King his right to co-promote Chris Byrd [see related story]. The more common procedure when a boxer is unhappy with his promoter is for the boxer to sign a contract with a second promoter, collect a signing bonus and let the original promoter come after him. Given the many millions of dollars at stake and with no plans set for his next title defense, Lewis has opted for a conservative route that is likely to reduce his legal liability.

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