Great article by fightopinion
Keith Kizer’s political protection
Kizer is a creature of the Nevada Attorney General’s office. As I’ve demonstrated with my numerous articles on California’s athletic commission, it is really amazing to see the tentacles that state AG offices extend into athletic commission affairs. Many of the lawyers that work in AG offices want to be involved in combat sports in one way or another. The awful Karen Chappelle in Los Angeles allegedly wished/wishes she could be a boxing judge in addition to serving the commission as it’s lawyer. It’s ridiculous. Mike Mersch, one of UFC’s two big legal eagles, was a deputy attorney in the AG office in Nevada.
Let’s state the obvious: if you’re a lawyer worth anything, you go into private practice rather than the AG’s office. (Ed. — Addendum: I’m referring to making money, not other career aspects like conviction rates of going after bad guys.) You only go to the AG’s office if you aren’t confident enough in making good money in private practice or if you are looking for résumé enhancement to go places for future political gigs. The difference in backgrounds between Larry Epstein and Mike Mersch is quite stark.
If you want to make money as a lawyer, you got into private practice. Don’t get me wrong — the salaries Chappelle and others make is crazy given their skill set.
Kizer has political protection from two entities — the Governor’s office and the AG’s office. Brian Sandoval, the current Governor of Nevada, was Nevada’s Attorney General.
To run a state athletic commission, having strong knowledge of state law is key. However, anyone with an open mind and a hungry appetite for learning can learn & practice state law applicable to commission matters in a relatively short time. You don’t need a hack from the AG’s office to do the job.
The question then becomes why these entities are protecting Kizer. The answer relies on Occam’s Razor (the simplest answer/guess is often the correct one). The state politicians think Kizer does a great job of bringing revenue to the state. The pols are connecting dots between what Nevada’s commission makes and Kizer. They think there’s an actual correlation — when there really isn’t any. The emperor has no clothes.
No one can honestly sit here and say that Kizer has great relations with promoters. Bob Arum thinks he’s a racist. Dana White constantly destroys him over which officials get booked. Golden Boy never really praises Kizer. The television executives never go out of their way to prop him up. If you look at the calendar of events booked in Nevada, the number is smaller than you think. The volume of shows California & Texas draw in comparison makes Nevada look like a chump.
The reason big shows go to Nevada has nothing to do with Keith Kizer. It has everything to do with the tax situation. It takes up to $3 million dollars in TV revenue before you hit the $50,000 TV tax cap with the commission. The commission has a 6% live gate tax that the casinos often pick up the tab for. Gambling is the lifeline of combat sports in the state. Nothing Keith Kizer has done in terms of recruiting promoters to bring shows to the state has impacted the bottom line. If anything, Kizer is a negative when it comes to promoters. They don’t want to put up with him and his constant need for attention. He is always inserting himself into fight-related issues in the press. He can’t help himself. Kizer also has a pathological hatred of individuals like Margaret Goodman and he can’t shut up or stop attacking others.
Ask yourself the following: if Keith Kizer was fired tomorrow from the commission, would the amount of revenue the commission takes in from shows really change? Of course not. He has zero positive impact on business affairs. The way Marc Ratner molded Nevada’s commission basically makes it easy to run on auto-pilot as long as you don’t massively screw up paperwork. Why do you think Keith Kizer sits on his ass and goes on boxing & MMA message boards and web sites every day? He has time to kill while drawing a paycheck he simply doesn’t have to do much work for.
So, how do you remove a guy like Kizer from office?
continued at http://www.fightopinion.com/2013/09/15/nevada-keith-kizer-boxing-ufc/
