Donny Lalonde speaking event KO’d in Winnipeg

Anyone hoping to hear boxing greats Donny Lalonde and Earnie Shavers speak about their best moments in the ring at an event in Winnipeg tomorrow evening should change plans.

Tickets were advertised for sale online up until Tuesday but the event was cancelled in March, according to the promoter, who said he didn’t know the event was still being promoted.

This comes after CBC reported Lalonde’s name appears in a complex set of companies and real estate developments detailed in the Panama Papers — a leak of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca,

More than two dozen investors say Lalonde didn’t deliver on real estate projects in Costa Rica.

Lalonde is now living in Malta, but was once the “Golden Boy” of boxing in Manitoba.

Safecom Events was advertising tickets to hear Lalonde and Shavers speak for up to $100 with dates in Winnipeg and several other Canadian cities including Regina,Toronto and Montreal.

“We had to cancel an event back in March and I thought, well, we had outsourced some of our marketing and to the best our my knowledge we had taken down all avenues but apparently not. So this is the first I’m hearing  of this,” said SafeCom director Chris Schaefer.

“We took that down. It shouldn’t be there any more. It shouldn’t be visible,” he said, adding he would schedule a meeting with his team to find out what happened.

The Winnipeg event was supposed to take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 19 at the University of Winnipeg while an event at the University of Regina was advertised for Wednesday night,

The University of Winnipeg’s manager of conferences and events Susan Reid said she knew nothing about the plan and that there was no booking for venue space.

The event’s online billing said, “Be entertained and inspired as boxing greats, Earnie Shavers, the hardest puncher who ever lived and Canada’s own, former WBC Light Heavyweight Champion, Donny ‘Golden Boy’ Lalonde hold court and recount their careers utilizing film highlights and sharing their personal recollections of their magnificent careers.”

The event was cancelled over scheduling problems.

“Scheduling problems with Earnie and Donny and getting them together at the same time,” Schaefer said.  “We had some last minute, not really last minute, but we were aware of it back in March. We pulled the plug then.”

Lalonde was asked about the speaking tour this month but did not comment.

Last fall Schaefer promoted a speaking event with Shavers in Edmonton and Shavers was interviewed on CBC Radio.

At the U of W, Reid said she was concerned, “considering that they’re advertising and charging tickets for an event that we don’t know anything about and there’s been no formal process or anything taking place.”

“There’s no contact number there’s no anything which also I find a little bit sketchy when you’re an event company and you’ve got your information listed but all there is is an email,” said Reid, adding she was trying to contact SafeCom.

Schaefer said people who purchased tickets had their money refunded.

“We had refunded all of our tickets. We don’t have any outstanding tickets on any of our events at this point in time. So, it’s just those notices and again, those notices will have to come down ASAP.”

“I’ll get right on it,” he said.

The SafeCom website now shows the events are cancelled.