New York Commercial and Construction Lawyer Blog
Apparently, there is no fury greater than that of a person who just spent close to $100 to watch a long-awaited boxing match on Pay-Per-View (“PPV”) that did not live up to the hype.
PPV viewers in at least six states have filed putative class action lawsuits arising out of the recent “Fight of the Century” between Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. In the complaints, the plaintiffs all seek to recover millions of dollars in damages against various combinations of Pacquiao, his promoters/advisers, and Mayweather, as well as HBO and Showtime, the media companies televising the fight. The basis of the lawsuits are that the parties fraudulently failed to disclose to the public a significant injury to Pacquiao before the fight, and that they, and other similarly situated people, would not have ordered the fight, attended the fight, or bet on the fight if they had known about Pacquiao’s injury.
While the facts are still emerging, it is known that immediately after the largely disappointing fight concluded, the Pacquiao camp used the post-fight press conference to note that their fighter had fought with a significant injury to his right shoulder. In the days that followed, stories emerged in the press that detailed (1) that Pacquiao had apparently suffered a significant shoulder injury about a month before the fight, (2) that Pacquiao’s camp had considered postponing the fight, but declined to do so, (3) that, nonetheless, Pacquiao’s promoters had filed an official Nevada State Athletic Commission (“NSAC”) document the day before the fight stating, under penalty of perjury, that Pacquiao was not injured, (4) that the NSAC had denied a Pacquiao request, made just before the fight, to take an anti-inflammatory injection, on the grounds that it was untimely, and (5) that Pacquiao’s camp claimed that the denial of the injection by the NSAC materially affected the outcome of the fight because Pacquiao was hindered by the injury throughout the contest. Pacquiao has since reportedly had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in the right shoulder.