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12.11.2007: The
inferior court Charlottenburg (in Berlin) ruled on Oct. 24 in
favour of Fight Production in their lawsuit against Elite
Box-Promotion, a promotional group that has seemingly stopped
their activity already some time ago. The lawsuit stems from
Elite’s debut promotion on March 31, 2006 in Potsdam, Germany,
for which Fight Production was hired as matchmaker and duely
worked out the 8-fight card – only to be cheated out of the
agreed payment. According to documents submitted to the court by
Fight Production’s lawyer, Elite Box-Promotion was looking to
fraud people from the off, and Fight Production is confirmed not
to be the first party to have taken Elite to court successfully.
Olaf
Schroeder, head of Fight Production, explained the background of
the legal battle:
“All
agreements on behalf of Elite were done by Falco Behling, who
styled himself as the person entitled to conduct business on
behalf of Elite. And when he didn’t keep his promise to pay
Fight Production on the night, he even signed on Elite’s
behalf to pay later on invoice. This scheme was used with other
people also. After the invoice was received, Behling was doing
nothing but buying time – until it was clear he never had any
intention of paying. Then suddenly Elite’s CEO Jan Zamboni
claimed that Behling had nothing to do with them and never was
authorized to conduct business for Elite! But we could prove in
court that Behling was acting for and on behalf of Elite and
every witness we called attested to that. I think the court
could understand easily that Behling and Zamboni are nothing but
cheaters.”
And
possibly dreamers of the most naïve sort as well, far removed
from the realities of the professional boxing business. After
their first promotion, Behling loudly proclaimed “This is the
start of a monthly series of shows that will still exist 10
years from now!” – it took less than 12 months and only a
handful of shows until Elite was forced to realize their
complete failure.
“Having
just a big mouth and a propensity towards being criminal is
obviously not enough,” Schroeder shrugged his shoulders, “In
Behling’s eyes he knew everything about boxing and everybody
else knew nothing. But look at the fighters he had hopes for
like Edgar Kalnars or Tonton Semakala, whom he got knocked out
quickly, and you understand that Behling’s boxing knowledge is
very close to zero. He did not even understood that struggling
to beat bums does not mean you can beat good opponents! But the
main thing is that everybody in boxing understands that Behling
and Zamboni are crooks of the worst kind with whom one should
never do business.”
Elite
Box-Promotion has appealed against the court’s verdict, while
Fight Production has indicated intentions to report both Behling
and Zamboni to authorities for fraud.
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