Guys who took dives

Tim Witherspoon vs Neilson.

I still cannot believe how bad a job Tim did making it look like he was hurt. It was laughable.

Tim came out and said he threw the Bonecrusher rematch but that was more of a real fight that the time he went to Denmark... oh that stank!

 

Spoon didn't dive against Smith.

That's literally a case of a great HW being less than fully focused against a man who can cause serious damage with his fists.

 

Not so sure Luf.

If a durable fighter gets knocked out in the first round, then that should always set bells ringing!

That is the textbook way to take a dive.

 

Durability means nothing in the HW division mate.

A 15 stone man can kill anyone with the right punch at the wrong time. They can certainly drop a man whos suddenly realised he's been conned and is set to lose his pension fund.

 

willie pep was always in hock to the gamblers--mostly betting on horses....he often said,"fast women and slow horses" to explain why he was always broke..

re"carnera/sharkey" sharkey showed how to ake a punch and tank it. he fought a totally different style in that fight...kept bobbing into carnera's punches until he found one that looked acceptable and let carnera throw a good uppercut....and the first row was damp from the splash

 

Gerrie Coetzee took a first round dive against Frank Bruno....he literally threw himself
to the canvas, open one eye, looked around then lay still. Obvious dive. He had only
4 more fights after that one.

The Seldon-Tyson fight has been mentioned. Seldon also threw himself to the canvas after
getting hit real hard. Like Tyson said, they all have a plan until they get hit.

 

But Smith didn't land any hard shots and the way Tim reacted didn't look authentic to me.

 

You wouldn't have the space to write them all out. How many guys taking fights in the other guy's country who took the fight for money with the implicit threat that "all would not go well" without the expected result? How about guys at the end of their career doing "a favor" for a promoter?

When I interviewed him a few years back, Tony Gardner told me he got a call from the matchmaker at MSG- I can't remember his name at the moment, but it's on the tape, asking him to put a guy over named "Fighting Jim Richards" in Curacao that they were thinking about giving a push to.

Happens more than we'd ever suspect or probably want to know.

 

Seldon quit more than took a dive IMO against Tyson.

The first KD was caused by a slip but Bruce seemingly had a moment of realization when he was being given the 8 count - he could see a painless way out of a fight he didn't believe he could win. The second KD was clearly a dive and Bruce's fake wobbly legs during the 8 count was terrible acting.

 

50 seconds in Smith lands a huge right hand that Spoon never recovered from.

Plus a whole tooth was knocked out.

 

I think the bonecrusher win was legit. The Witherspoon fight that really stank was against Brian Neilson. You all ought to watch that one.

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No he didn't he was down from a right, got up, threw a few shots took another right,got caught with some jabs retreated to the ropes and shipped a big right hand that knocked him out.He didn't open his eyes or look around, his head was outside the ring being supported by ringsiders.

I was ringside for that fight.

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Well, first he dived to the floor without getting hit.
Second knockdown, he went flying from a hook that merely grazed him, then got up and towards the end of the eight-count he did a ridiculous acting job faking jelly legs, forcing a referee stoppage.

Depends how you all define a "dive".

 

There's no doubt that Smith hit him really hard and straight away.
But there's a strong possibility that Witherspoon had no intention of putting up much resistance and prefered to lose this fight.