McCullough-Morales showdown called off

Dean Juipe

Friday, Jan. 9, 1998 | 1:04 a.m.

It was not welcome news.

But what it may have been is a sign of escalating trouble in paradise, as Wayne McCullough's dissatisfaction with his managerial team reached a new height Thursday after his fight with World Boxing Council 122-pound champion Erik Morales was scrapped.

That bout, which had been tentatively set for Feb. 28 in El Paso, would have given the Las Vegas-based McCullough a crack at his second world title. Instead, the former WBC 118-pound champion is feeling despondent.

"I might as well pack my bags and go back to Ireland," he said after being apprised of the cancellation by a reporter. "I can tell you right now I'm ready, willing and able to fight. The trouble is, Mat Tinley is trying to ruin my career."

Tinley and his associate, Dan Goossen, manage McCullough. Promoter Bob Arum, who is putting on the Feb. 28 card although it will now move from El Paso to Atlantic City, said Goossen portrayed McCullough as uncooperative and he had no choice but to drop the fight. (The Feb. 28 main event will feature Oscar De La Hoya vs. Patrick Charpentier, with a Keith Mullings vs. David Ciarlante fight supplanting McCullough vs. Morales at the top of the undercard.)

"I talked to Dan Goossen and he said they were having problems with McCullough," Arum said. "We sent them the contract for the Morales fight two weeks ago and I never got it back. So I asked Goossen and he said McCullough is a head case, and that this promoter and that promoter were trying to strike deals with him."

Arum added a McCullough vs. Morales fight could be rescheduled for April 4 on a card and at a site yet to be determined.

That came as little consolation to McCullough, who also had a scheduled fight Saturday in Studio City, Calif., cancelled. While that bout wouldn't have been particularly rewarding from a financial standpoint, McCullough was to have received $150,000 for facing Morales.

"Tinley's my friend, supposedly," he said. "He brought me to the United States and used me to start his (promotional) company, America Presents. Now he's got 35 boxers or something and I guess I'm not as important. I've said to him, 'Just release me' but he won't because he said he'd be embarrassed.

"He's like a child with a toy, saying 'If I can't play with it, nobody can.'"

Tinley, reached in his Denver office, tells a slightly different story.

"I still like Wayne and I don't really know why he's (mad) at me," he said. "I'm trying to promote him; I'm doing everything I can to promote him and I want him to be fighting.

"Why wouldn't I? He has a five-year contract with us in which he has taken three (advance) installments -- and I'm not talking peanuts here -- without fighting."

McCullough, 20-1, admitted in a SUN story last month that he signed a contract extension with America Presents last spring but that he had since been told "it was the worst contract in the history of boxing." As a result, he asked that the contract be reworked and he and Tinley met on it earlier this week.

"Tuesday night we agreed to everything," McCullough said. "Then Wednesday a (registered) letter came that said we were going to go by the old contract instead. He went back on his word."

McCullough said he was not entertaining offers from other managers or promoters and that he was reluctant to take America Presents to arbitration because "it can take a couple of years." His preference is to resolve his problems with Tinley and Goossen and get back in the ring, where he hasn't been since losing to Daniel Zaragoza almost a year ago in a fight in which he also suffered a broken jaw.

"I can't believe it," he said. "I thought the Morales fight was all set and that I'd also get (Naseem) Hamed this summer on HBO. I went from being happier than ever with a new contract to this.

"What's sad too is that you heard about it before me."