Tony Tubbs LKO1 Jimmy Ellis - was it fixed or real?

It certainly was unusual.

 

It looks shady to me.

I'm not naïve enough to think fighters will take a dive if the financial motivation makes it riskier or plain stupid to not take one, but what would motivate Tubbs to do it? This is a bad loss that shut Tubbs out of bigger and better paydays, so how could he make enough cash off this relatively obscure fight to don the trunks? Makes no sense no matter the way it looks.

 

he got clipped on the temple no fix

 

Exactly.. Over the previous ten months or so, Tony had put together a decent winning streak over a few prospects and gatekeepers.. While I doubt he had any significant rating, I'm guessing he had to be somewhere in the top 20-25 range as a result of some of those wins, which isn't a bad place to be for a decent payday.. Especially given that there were a lot of young up and comers along with some seasoned veteran named opponents.. Somebody would have had to have given him a pretty large chunk of change to make throwing that fight in the tank worth his while and I can't see anybody thinking that jimmy Ellis was worth throwing that money away on...

 

Yes.

One can guess that Tubbs throws the fight to win money on betting for his KO 1 loss.

On the other hand in that case Tubbs loses his chances to get better paydays in far bigger fights.

 

He'd also have to find someone who was willing to take such a large bet on what was basically a small-time fight with nothing riding on it and likely very limited gambling interest.

 

Give me a break it's KO.

 

Doubt it.

 

this was legit. ellis was nothing special, but his left hook was good. and look how he went down........thats not fake.

 

I agree. Looked like a clean "temple" shot.

 

It's the way he went down that made me think something wasn't on the level.

Dude cushions his fall and stops his head from crashing to the canvas by rolling, which his why his legs come up so much.

That doesn't happen when a temple shot knocks you out cold. Look at Ottke-Mundine or Chambers-Wlad for an idea of what a light looking temple shot in the right spot does- the losing fighter looked like they were dead, to be blunt.

And, if it was an equilibrium shot, he wouldn't have lied down without even trying to get up.

Maybe he made the call to just stay down on the spot, as a solid punch did land, but that reaction didn't make sense to me. We could argue about motives until the cows come home. But that looked way more like the fake knockouts I've seen than the genuine ones.

 

I remember around the time of the Ellis fight, it could have been before, it could have been after, I can't remember exactly, Tubbs was quoted saying he was tired of getting $20,000 paydays. He griped that he had beaten Ferguson, who then lucked into beating a disinterested Mercer, and then got a pretty big payday against Bowe. I think Tubbs really needed money (for cocaine?) - that may explain why he entered that weird tournament at the end of '93 where the winner was supposed to get $1 Million. He ended up winning it but didn't even get $100,000 because the gate an PPV did poorly.

That doesn't necessarily mean he threw the Ellis fight, but he wasn't getting any big paydays, despite beating Ferguson and Seldon.

 

Tubbs was better than Ellis made him look here, but the guy hit him. Nothing wrong with that connection. A lot of leverage on the right hand that missed but he turned himself round with that left hook and it was on target. A left hook on the end of a full blooded right is one of the most dangerous punches in boxing because all the weight on the right hand pivots back off the left foot.

Tubbs had talent but I hear the man lived like a fool. complicated home life to say the least. If Tony was not always in the right frame of mind to fight on the night it would not surprise me...but that's not Ellis' fault.

 

Most fights are fixed

 

The video is inconclusive, but is there anything other than the implausibility of the outcome that points towards a fix?