Boxer Makes Mistake of Believing Don King

Tito Santana look-alike Ricardo Mayorga is threatening to pull out of his Junior Middleweight title defense against Oscar De La Hoya Saturday night citing his disappointment with only receiving $2 million for the fight when he was told that he would be getting $8 million.

Although he signed a $2 million contract, Mayorga maintains that Don King guaranteed him the extra $6 million.

"I wanted to sign a contract for $8 million. I signed one for a lesser amount to lure Oscar into the fight," Mayorga said. "I want what was initially told to me. I'm not going to fight for free. What I am being offered at this point is not what I was offered verbally, and that's what I want them to live up to.”

Naturally, King denied ever making such a promise.

Just from checking out his Wikipedia page, Mayorga doesn’t really seem like the most intelligent person in the world. He smokes two packs of cigarettes a day when he isn’t in training and has allegedly punched a woman over a debt he owed, threatened and beat up some other guy and raped another woman. There is no mention of his reading level.

I guess it’s a possibility that Mayorga didn’t realize who he was dealing with. King’s word is about as unreliable as any man in the entire world. The guy was a con man before being a promoter, which most say goes hand in hand. He is the type of person that makes promises just to break them.

It’s tough being a boxer. They have about as much influence on their life as race horses and they don’t get laid nearly as much – at least not consensually. But in this case, Mayorga is very wrong. Maybe he got scammed by the lowest of lowlifes, but that’s his or his lawyer’s fault. He signed a contract and now he needs to honor it.

Update: Realizing that $2 million is a lot more than say… nothing, Mayorga has decided to go through with the fight after all. Chalk another one up for Don King.

Mayorga threatens to pull out of fight with De La Hoya – Fight Report
Ricardo Mayorga - Wikipedia