Al Haymon’s investors dropped from Top Rank boxing lawsuit

A federal judge in Los Angeles has removed powerful boxing manager Al Haymon’s financial backers from a lawsuit filed by veteran promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc.

U.S. District Court Judge John H. Walter also dismissed anti-trust and other claims made in Top Rank’s nine-figure lawsuit, with a provision that allows Arum’s company to refile the lawsuit by Oct. 30.

Arum told The Times in a brief telephone conversation Saturday that his attorneys are “working on” an amended complaint following the Friday ruling.

Top Rank’s lawsuit followed an earlier one by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions against Haymon and his Premier Boxing Champions company, which has rounded up a reported 200 fighters and has time-buy arrangements to televise fights on NBC, CBS, ABC, ESPN and other cable networks.

The lawsuit claims Haymon has more than $400 million in backing by Kansas-based Waddell and Reed Financial, Inc., but Judge Walter ruled Waddell and Reed don’t belong in the lawsuit, writing that the lawsuit, by law, should be focused on one enterprise: Haymon’s.

Top Rank and Golden Boy have alleged Haymon is engaging in monopolistic practices.

Walter cited in his opinion that behaving as a monopoly requires proving activity with “a specific intent to monopolize a relevant market; predatory or anticompetitive conduct; and a dangerous probability of success.”

In granting Haymon’s motion to dismiss, the judge wrote the Top Rank claims on the matter are “vague and lack the requisite factual detail.”

He also dismissed Top Rank’s claims that Haymon is violating the federal Sherman Act, which prohibits restraint of trade, in Haymon’s fighter contracts, explaining in two references that “Top Rank fails to allege any evidentiary facts plausibly suggesting restricted output or supracompetitive prices in the promotion market ... and has failed to allege injury to itself.”

Attorneys for Top Rank and Haymon did not immediately return telephone messages left for them Saturday.

Walter asked Top Rank’s attorneys to supply proof that Haymon has never consented to allowing his fighters to sign with legitimate promoters, identifying Haymon’s promotional partners TGB Promotions in Sherman Oaks and Lou DiBella in New York as “sham promoters.”

“If Top Rank can, in good faith, allege facts showing that the Haymon defendants have never consented to allowing boxers in their management stable to sign with ‘legitimate promoters,’ Top Rank may be able to state a viable tying claim,” Walter wrote before temporarily dismissing the claim that is at the heart of the lawsuits.

Top Rank and Golden Boy claim Haymon is violating the federal Muhammad Ali Act that forbids a boxing manager from operating simultaneously as a promoter.

Follow Lance Pugmire on Twitter @latimespugmire