A new lawsuit accuses Top Rank Boxing president Todd duBoef of withholding “millions” in unpaid fees from a former employee and claims the company used ties to an alleged drug gang to secure more popular fights for their deal with ESPN.
Boxing manager William Keane, who took on a role with Top Rank in 2018 and was described in the filing as a “well-connected fixer with all the right tools” utilized to convince high-profile boxers like Tyson Fury to sign with Top Rank, claims that he “has suffered material consequential damages in excess of $25 million,” in the complaint obtained and reviewed.
Filed on Thursday, Feb. 27 in California Federal Court, the suit accuses duBeof — whose stepfather is 93-year-old Top Rank founder Bob Arum — of “breach of contract, promissory fraud and unjust enrichment.”
According to the filing, Arum “said he needed Keane to help convince ESPN that Top Rank would be able to sign big name fighters and deliver for ESPN, in 2018 and that Top Rank “would pay Keane 10% of every dollar those fighters earned, mimicking what he would be making as a manager.”
A general ring side view of the Top Rank Boxing logo.
Photo by Christopher Trim/CSM/Shutterstock
Earlier this month, ESPN informed Top Rank that it would not be renewing their rights deal, which began in 2017 and expires in August.
Per the claim, duBoef stopped paying Keane his owed fees for securing fights. Additionally, Keane alleges that duBoef did not have the money to underwrite the purse for the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight and hid from ESPN that the purse was underwritten by “alleged organized crime boss” Daniel Kinahan, who has ties to Fury.
In 2018, duBoef allegedly “authorized” Keane to “move forward’ working with Kinahan in an attempt to secure Top Rank’s promotion of Fury. “But he admonished Keane that ESPN could not find out that Kinahan was involved,” the suit claims.
“An Irish newspaper had reported that Kinahan was the head of a drug cartel, and if duBoef were linked to Kinahan, ESPN might be forced to terminate their deal,” the suit stated.
Tyson Fury at Kingdom Arena on Dec. 21, 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Richard Pelham/Getty
According to the complaint, duBoef has never “disputed that Keane is owed millions of dollars” and claims Keane is “informed and believes that duBoef decided to hoard and conserve” the company’s cash “right after ESPN advised him” of the contract termination.
The filing goes on to claim that the boxing industry largely believed duBoef “could never fill Arum’s shoes” as the president of the company. “Arum had been the larger-than-life frontman, master promoter and brains of Top Rank since day one. duBoef did not excel in any of those capacities, especially when it came to signing and promoting big-name fighters,” the complaint alleged.
“To make matters worse, Arum had expressed to Keane and others that ESPN’s executives did not respect duBoef,” the filing continued.
