Columnist Dean Juipe: Local fighter is latest to use bankruptcy for own benefit

Dean Juipe

Friday, May 28, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Few athletes have the ability and, perhaps more important, the financial wherewithal to succeed and reach the professional level entirely by themselves. Whether it's mom and dad footing the bills for equipment, or coaches hammering home the fundamentals during daily drills, or investors supplying cash to live on and providing time for development, the typical athlete is indebted to any number of Good Samaritans.

This is particularly true in the high-profile "individual" sports such as golf, tennis and boxing. It takes time and money to become accomplished at these crafts, and oftentimes the athlete himself does not have that money.

Frequently, it's older friends of the family who step in as emissaries and provide the opening nest egg the athlete needs to pay for such staples as housing, food and clothing. They, of course, either expect or hope to be reimbursed some day down the road.

But when a budding athlete signs a contract that not only entitles him to expense money and advances but requires him to repay the investment if and when his professional success allows, it's morally if not legally reprehensible if he makes the decision to renege.

It's a touchy subject, but it involves Ishe Smith.

And Antonio Tarver.

And James Toney.

Those are just three athletes, each professional fighters of some repute, who are part of a growing trend visible throughout America. They arguably took what they could from those who were financially backing and supporting them, and then they declared personal bankruptcy to get out from under the burden of their debts.

It's a trend, I'm told, that extends to today's business community, where some start-up businesses map and follow a strategy that includes filing for bankruptcy in the third or fourth year of operation. Debts reduced if not erased, they continue (post-bankruptcy) to operate and pocket monies that rightfully should have been repaid to creditors.

The courts, somehow, allow it.

"It's definitely a trend in boxing and it's because the scales of justice have tipped overboard," boxing promoter Gary Shaw said from his New Jersey office. "The fighter declares bankruptcy and gets out of his contract. Where's the justice in that?"

Shaw is at least somewhat irate with Smith, a 25-year-old welterweight who was born and continues to live in North Las Vegas. Now 14-0 and in position to make a few bucks, Smith declared bankruptcy this week in an effort to alleviate approximate debts of $45,000 to Shaw and $35,000 to co-manager Shelly Finkel and an unspecified sum to co-manager Mike Levy.

Smith's legal action has become part of a pattern.

Three weeks ago and a few days before he upset Roy Jones Jr. in a great light heavyweight fight, Tarver declared bankruptcy to remove himself from a total of $1 million in debts even though he was about to be paid $2.1 million to fight Jones.

And earlier this year Toney, coming off a high six-figure payday for having defeated Evander Holyfield, declared bankruptcy but later was pressured to reconsider before reaching a compromise settlement with his backers.

What's happening here, at least as it pertains to boxing, is a case of these fighters (and others, as Finkel cited four more examples) clearly biting the hands that had been feeding them.

"It's sad," Finkel said Thursday from his office in New York. "You work with someone and have the best intentions and then they do this."

Smith, who was living in a Summerlin condominium rented for him by his handlers when I visited him there in January, may or may not be ruining his boxing reputation but he is almost assuredly damaging his credit history and future. Any loans, mortgages or leases he may wish to enter into for the remainder of his life can and will be affected by his having declared bankruptcy.

He said Thursday from his North Las Vegas home that he has his own reasons for filing for bankruptcy and that he's "not sympathetic to (Shaw, Finkel and Levy) at all."

Shaw, Finkel and Levy would like to talk to Smith about it, but they've found him uncooperative. Shaw said he hasn't spoken to Smith in 10 days; Finkel said it has been three weeks in his case; and Levy can't get past a token response.

"He's been avoiding our calls," Finkel said.

Finkel had just received a copy of the bankruptcy papers and promised legal action of his own.

"I'm going after his future assets ... his future boxing earnings," he said.

Those future boxing earnings may be minimal, however, if Smith is as badly out of condition (and circulation) as his onetime handlers are led to believe. While he has frequently struggled to reach his optimum fighting weight of 147 pounds, Smith allegedly is well into the 170s and has turned down not only a prominent fight with ex-champ Zab Judah but at least three others.

"He was offered substantial money to fight Judah (May 15 on the same Mandalay Bay card that included Tarver's victory against Jones) and I told him, 'This is what you've been working for' yet he still turned it down," Shaw said of a deal that would have been worth in excess of $100,000 to Smith.

Shaw said Smith has also turned down three other fights, each on the Showtime cable network and each worth more than pocket change.

It irks Shaw on any number of fronts, not the least of which is the fact he paid $35,000 to Guilty Boxing of Las Vegas to extract Smith from a contract that he entered into shortly after turning pro. Shaw also said he later loaned Smith $10,000 in two installments of $5,000 each.

Levy said he paid Smith a signing bonus (which Smith is not obliged to repay) and has advanced him occasional money as well, adding that he feels as if he's a victim of Smith's deception.

"I don't feel bad for him at all," Levy said Thursday from Los Angeles. "He could have accepted almost any of these fights he's been offered and gotten himself out of the (financial) trouble he says he's in."

Asked when he last spoke to Smith, Levy said it was recently "but only after I left him a stern message. Then he calls me back but before I can say anything he says 'I've got another call' and then he never calls me back.

"He comes across as your buddy or best pal, then he won't speak to you the next day. I've known this was coming for a while but it's disheartening and it's not good for sports in general to see an athlete do this."

Levy said he would "absolutely" join Finkel in seeking a long-term restitution judgment in court.

Smith says he's welcoming the challenge.

"For them to accuse me of anything is totally absurd," he said. "I'm not scared by threats. I've had a gun held to my head before. I don't live by fear.

"I fit the definition of bankruptcy as it's listed in the dictionary. I'm in financial straits. I'm having financial difficulties. I've had more money going out than coming in.

"They can say what they want about fighting Zab Judah and all of that, but those are a lot of what ifs. What I do know is this: I was embarrassed and ashamed at what I received for my last fight (vs. Randall Bailey, Jan. 15 in Santa Ynez, Calif., on Showtime).

"I don't want to incriminate myself, but it was totally absurd. There's no hiding the fact that I'm bankrupt."

Levy said Smith took home between $3,000 and $5,000 of the $25,000 purse Smith received for fighting Bailey. "It wasn't much, but it's because he owes everyone so much," Levy remarked, adding that if Smith wanted to correct the situation or find a solution "he passed up plenty of opportunities to talk about it with us even back then."

Smith, coming off nice victories against Sam Garr and David Estrada, defeated Bailey by decision in his most recent fight, winning by 7, 5 and 1 points on the judges' cards. But he wasn't particularly impressive and he finished the bout exhausted and with a bloody nose.

"I think that fight took a lot out of him," Finkel said.

These legal maneuverings may keep Smith out of the ring for quite awhile and there are hints that he may not even choose to continue. "I've lived without boxing before," Smith said, adding that he didn't feel it was right to lump him in with Toney and Tarver if their actions were to be labeled as blatant abuse of the system.

"The difference between me and those guys is that they'd already made millions of dollars," he said. "I haven't."

But Shaw alleges that considerable money was within Smith's grasp.

"When I signed Ishe, I looked at him as a potential future champion and as the first champion to actually be born in Las Vegas," he said. "I paid $35,000 to get him out of his contract with Guilty and I've never gotten a penny back from that.

"In the meantime I took Ishe out of obscurity; got him ranked; got him on national TV; got him sparring sessions with Fernando Vargas and Sugar Shane Mosley; and got people talking about him.

"I brought in Shelly as the last piece of the puzzle and we were ready to take Ishe to bigger heights.

"Now he's passing up wonderful opportunities, plus ruining his own career. He can't have so many debts that he needs to declare bankruptcy, let alone pass up four fights on TV that would have solved a lot of his financial problems.

"Any fighter with his marbles is dying for the type of opportunities that Ishe has been presented with."

There's a feeling among Smith's estranged management team that a third party of sorts has acquired the fighter's ear and has steered him into the bankruptcy proceedings.

There's also a fear that what they're experiencing with Smith is ripe to be repeated again and again in the future with other, similar fighters.

"It worries me," Shaw said. "Boxing is a costly business and you don't make any money with a fighter unless he makes it big.

"If there's no protection for someone like myself, why should I ever invest in another young fighter again?"

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