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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Boxer Drops Claims Over Movie ‘Bleed for This’

Vinny Paz, a boxing champ whose recovery from a broken neck is chronicled in the 2016 film “Bleed for This,” has resolved a lawsuit against a Hollywood producer, his attorney confirmed Friday.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CN) - Vinny Paz, a boxing champ whose recovery from a broken neck is chronicled in the 2016 film “Bleed for This,” has resolved a lawsuit against a Hollywood producer, his attorney confirmed Friday.

“The lawsuit brought by Vinny Paz and the counterclaim was voluntarily dismissed by all parties without action or consideration by the court,” attorney Andrew Tine said in a statement. “The case was not ‘tossed’ as some media sources have reported, as there was no decision on the merits by the court.”

Tine filed a complaint for Paz this past May in their home state of Rhode Island, taking aim at the producer and director of the “Bleed for This,” a feature film about Paz’s life story.

Despite positive reviews about the performance of “Fantastic Four” alum Miles Teller, the movie generated just $6.7 million at the box office. Aaron Eckhart, Katy Sagal and Ted Levine star in supporting roles.

Paz had his name legally changed in 2001 but fought in the 1990s as Vincenzo “The Pazmanian Devil” Pazienza.

In 1991, a year before suffering his spinal injury in a car crash, Paz became the second fighter in boxing history to win both the lightweight and junior middleweight world championships. Doctors said he’d never walk again, but Paz won his comeback match just 13 months after the accident.

In his complaint in Kent County Superior Court, Paz claimed that producer Ben Younger had promised him $200,000 for the movie rights to his life, but paid him just $25,000 and forged his signature on three contracts.

Younger and producer Chad Verdi shot back in a counterclaim that Paz had agreed to take less money when the film had trouble getting funding.

Both the claims and counterclaims were dismissed Thursday with prejudice.

In a statement to The Providence Journal, Paz said there had been a “misunderstanding” between the parties and that it had been “resolved.”

Categories / Entertainment, Sports

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