Open Letter from Irish Ropes

After reading some derogatory stories unfairly criticizing Irish Ropes Promotions for canceling its March 16th scheduled “Erin Go Brawl II” pro boxing show at WaMu Theater in Madison Square Garden, I am compelled to set the record straight about why we pulled the plug 10 days out and to explain what really happened leading up to the final decision.

First, though, I’d like to offer my condolences to Liam Neeson, and his family, for the loss of his wife. He attended several of the shows we promoted and I met him at many Irish benefits. Liam is a great man.

I’d also like to congratulate Brian Dunne on his great world-title winning performance last weekend and also to his promoter, Brian Peters, and trainer, Harry Hawkins - you reap what you sow! I’d also like to congratulate Mathew Macklin for winning the British middleweight championship, Paul McClosky for successfully defending his British title, and Andy Lee for his good performance.

I am, however, disappointed by what Lee said in newspapers back home about our show being canceled. I had a choice of losing $50,000 by canceling when we did, or to potentially lose $250,000 to go ahead. I was not under any contractual obligation to any of the fighters and chose to take the lesser hit.

The poor economy in New York and back in Ireland played a part in poor advance ticket sales, but the real reason for it was Team Lee. Let’s review the situation leading up to the cancelation. My first call to Manny Steward was for Lee to fight Walid Smichet. He agreed and it was even listed on Boxrec.com. Damien McCann, who is in charge of making deals for Lee, said they would take the fight but not for $30,000. Negotiations went back and forth for a few weeks and we finally agreed on $50,000, $4000 in comps (tickets), plus another $10,000 if the gross gate receipts were more than $425,000.

But then Lee said he wouldn’t fight Smichet because he knew about the animosity between Irish Ropes and John Duddy and he didn’t want to embarrass Duddy by fighting Smichet. Well, as it turned out, fans weren’t interested in buying tickets to watch Lee fight somebody that hadn’t won any of his last eight fights, Antwun Echols, who hasn’t won since 2004 and was knocked out the same night Andy fought in Ireland. Lee ridiculed us for the way we promoted the show and he even trashed the traditional Irish pub we had the press conference at, Jack Dempsey’s, where Gerry Cooney had his press conferences in the old days, as well as John Duddy and James Moore, and even a press conference for a documentary about Billy Collins was held there.

We promoted “Erin Go Brawl II” the same way we promoted any of our shows at Madison Square Garden. People simply weren’t buying tickets to see Lee fight a non-competitive fight against Echols. When I decided to pull the plug on the show, 10 days before the scheduled event, we had sold only 1500 tickets, approximately $130,000 worth, compared to $400,000 at the same time for our previous show (“Erin Go Brawl”) there. Bars that normally sell 300-400 tickets had sold only 20-30 for this one and nobody was going in or calling for tickets. It was inevitable and although I was terribly disappointed, I really didn’t have much of a choice about canceling the show.

Lee goes and talks to papers back home ridiculing me, saying he had to find-out from a third party that the show had been canceled. Within 10 minutes of deciding to cancel the show, I called, in order, the commission (New York State Athletic Commission), Madison Square Garden, (Irish-based boxing promoter) Brian Peters to ask if he could put Andy on his card, and then to Emanuel Steward. I told him the bad news was our show was canceled, but the good news was Andy would be fighting on Peters’ show in Ireland a week later than our show was scheduled. Andy Lee was with Emanuel.

Looking back at what happened, there was also a lot of bitterness about boxing in the Irish community (in New York City) resulting from a very negative article written by Thomas Hauser, of Team Duddy. My hands are tied on the advice of my attorney, but when everything is settled in court, I guarantee you the truth will come out on that subject.

We took the high road and didn’t blast anybody in the media for what’s happened to Irish Ropes Promotions. Too many lies and mistruths have been told, so I felt there was a need to explain everything from our side.

Regards,
Eddie McLoughlin,

Irish Ropes Promotions, President


See you at the Fights.
Thanks for your time.

Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience The Video Channel Online http://www.youtube.com/ELEmpress1

EL Boxing Empress Keisha Morrisey's Myspace http://www.myspace.com/Keishadivine

Honorable Keisha Morrisey http://www.keishamorrisey.com

©®™2007, 2008 All photos by "EL Boxing Empress" Keisha Morrisey- Empire Morrisey Photo-Studios, Khris Kirkpatrick Morrisey for Bloodline Boxing Communications Entertainment and Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience Magnews-Online Publication all rights reserved

SecondsOut Radio: The Life and Legacy of Jose Torres, with Paul Johnson‏

Jose Torres and Ramona his loving wife

SecondsOut Radio: The Life and Legacy of Jose Torres, with Paul Johnson On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldmanpresents a tribute to the late former light heavyweight champion and Hall of Fame fighter, Jose "Chegui" Torres, who passed away January19. He was 72. Jose Torres retired in 1969 with a record of 41-3-1 with 29 KO's after fighting in 45 fights and 300 rounds. He won the world light heavyweight championship in 1965 by stopping Willie Pastrano in the ninth round in Madison Square Garden. After three successful defenses,he lost that title to Dick Tiger in 1966 by decision, also in Madison Square Garden. He was also known as an author and writer, a former chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, and a fighter for social justice and many causes, including the movement for boxers to form a union. To remember and honor Jose Torres, we spoke with his long-time colleague and friend, Paul Johnson, the chairman of the Boxers Organizers Committee (http://www.boxers.org/). He attended the funeral for Jose Torres held this past week in Ponce, Puerto Rico. We spoke about Jose's life, his legacy, and a project in which he was involved, to call a conference of the major players in boxing,including the fighters, to create some unified structure for the sport. It is free to listen to or download SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, http://www.secondsout.com/radio/,and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Thanks, Eddie Goldmanhttp://eddiegoldman.com

See you at the Fights.
Thanks for your time.

Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience The Video Channel Online http://www.youtube.com/ELEmpress1

EL Boxing Empress Keisha Morrisey's Myspace http://www.myspace.com/Keishadivine

Honorable Keisha Morrisey http://www.keishamorrisey.com/

©®™2007, 2008 All photos by "EL Boxing Empress" Keisha Morrisey- Empire Morrisey Photo-Studios, Khris Kirkpatrick Morrisey for Bloodline Boxing Communications Entertainment and Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience Magnews-Online Publication all rights reserved

Ring 8 awards dinner Dec. 21 in NYC

NEW YORK– The annual Ring 8 holiday party, featuring an awards dinner and live music, will take place Sunday, December 21 (1 PM/ET) at Tony Mazzarella’s Waterfront Crabhouse (2-03 Borden Ave.) in Long Island City, New York.

Ring 8 award winners this year include Champion of the Year: Paulie Malignaggi; Promoter of the Decade: Cedric Kushner; Lifetime Achievement Award: Melvina Lathan, NYSAC Chairperson; Writer of the Year: Sean Sullivan; Ringside Physician Award: Dr. Richard Istrico; Kid Gavilan Humanitarian Award: Bill Tate.
Melvina Lathan, NYSAC Chairperson


See you at the Fights.
Thanks for your time.

Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience The Video Channel Online http://www.youtube.com/ELEmpress1

EL Boxing Empress Keisha Morrisey's Myspace http://www.myspace.com/Keishadivine

Honorable Keisha Morrisey http://www.keishamorrisey.com/

©®™2007, 2008 All photos by "EL Boxing Empress" Keisha Morrisey- Empire Morrisey Photo-Studios, Khris Kirkpatrick Morrisey for Bloodline Boxing Communications Entertainment and Starlite Boxing's Sweetscience Magnews-Online Publication all rights reserved

NO HOLDS BARRED: Mo Lawal, Ron Scott Stevens

NO HOLDS BARRED: Mo Lawal, Ron Scott Stevens

On this edition of NO HOLDS BARRED, host Eddie Goldman speaks with freestyle wrestler Mo Lawal and Ron Scott Stevens, the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

This past Saturday, April 26, Mo Lawal (http://www.myspace.com/molawal) won his third U.S. Nationals title at 84 kg/185 lbs. With this victory, he advances directly into the finals of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, which take place June 13-15 in Las Vegas, Nev. The winners at the Olympic Team Trials will represent the U.S. at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, in August.

We spoke at length with Mo Lawal about his victory at the Nationals and his plans for the future.

Since 1997, the sport of mixed martial arts has been banned in the State of New York. Now there are plans to repeal the regressive legislation outlawing it and place it under the sanctioning of the New York State Athletic Commission.

To get his view on this matter, we spoke with Ron Scott Stevens, the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

To listen to NO HOLDS BARRED, click the link at the start of this message, scroll down that page, and just press the play button on the player.

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The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

The NO HOLDS BARRED theme song is called "The Heist", by musician Ian Carpenter (http://iancarpenter.com/).

Make sure to check out my regular weekly boxing show SecondsOut Radio, at http://www.secondsout.com/radio/. On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, we review the latest show of the popular local boxing series, Punchin' at the Paradise, which was held Friday, April 25, at the Utopia Paradise Theater in the Bronx, NY. We spoke with two of the victorious undercard fighters, heavyweight Joe Hanks (2-0. 1 KO) and middleweight Bryant Pappas (6-0, 6 KOs), about their fights, and promoter Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing about his promotion and this show. It is free to listen to SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, http://www.secondsout.com/radio/, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Make sure to check out my regular articles on the ADCC News at http://www.adcombat.com and on FightBeat.com at http://fightbeat.com.

NO HOLDS BARRED is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

YAMMA Pit Fighting (http://yammapitfighting.com). The producers of the original UFC and Live Nation (http://livenation.com/), worldwide leaders in live entertainment, present YAMMA Pit Fighting mixed martial arts. On the streets, it's against the law. In the pit, it IS the law.

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Gladiator Challenge (http://gladiatorchallenge.com/), shaking up the mixed martial arts world since 1999, and now with 30 shows per year. For more news and info, check out their web site, GladiatorChallenge.com (http://gladiatorchallenge.com/).

BJJMart.com (http://bjjmart.com), your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Gladiator Magazine (http://gladmag.com/), for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com (http://bjjmart.com) or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear (http://jiujitsuprogear.com/).

FightBeat.com (http://fightbeat.com/), for news, results, interviews, and free exclusive videos from the worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts.

Thanks, Eddie Goldman

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