Mike Tyson’s controversial boxing bout against pugilist-cum-influencer Jake Paul raised a lot of eyebrows, and stirred rebuke left and right, but ultimately drew a record-setting number of eyeballs, watching the fight in November – some 108m are said to have tuned in for the event.
However, not everyone has been happy with how things have turned out. Based on a new filing in London’s High Court from this week, Medier, a marketing company, is among the disgruntled parties.
Medier has gone after both the legendary boxer and his company, Tyrannic, seeking more than $1.5m back for what the marketing agency alleges is an unjustly terminated promotional deal earlier this year.
The lawsuit specifies these costs as $800,000 of them are in fees paid to Tyson who failed to render any services in return, as well as $729,000 which were incurred in wasted production and promotional costs that never led to any material gain for the agency.
Medier is actually retaliating after Tyson’s team claimed that it was the marketing agency that had breached their contract, leading to the termination.
According to the promoter, the truth was that Tyson had to accept a deal with Netflix, which would prove far more lucrative in the long term, prompting him to immediately withdraw from any existing obligations with Medier.
Tyson’s team originally claimed when it was breaking the agreement that the agency had breached its contractual obligations on multiple occasions.
Speaking to the New York Post, Tyson’s team asserted:
"It is the company’s position that Medier, Ltd. materially breached the terms of its license agreement on multiple occasions and in various ways."
Yet, Medier will maintain its position that Tyson just opted for the more lucrative deal instead. Faced with this dilemma, Medier stipulated, Tyson’s team decided to break off the contract, shifting the blame onto the company instead. This has been denied in the complaint filed by Medier.
Tyson, who lost the fight, was able to reportedly fetch $20m from his one-night-bought against Jake Paul, conceding defeat to the young fighter in a not as nearly contested 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 three-round bout.
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