Some great 'circus acts' - Lamar 'KO' Clark -------------- Record for 'knockouts' over a crate of tomato cans James J. Beattie 'Big Jim' ------ A New York Public Relations firm creation Cassius Clay ----------------- Several of his early fights were 'scripted', and 'two' were obviously rehearsed.
Bob Arum admitted to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get unranked fighters a ranking for Foreman to be able to fight and keep the gravy train rolling. If he is willing to do that just to get unranked fighters ranked I have no doubt he would pay officials and fighters to fix fights. Of course that goes above and beyond the highly selective matchmaking that Foreman benefitted from and even admitted to.
Thomas Williams and two promoters were convicted in a US federal court for throwing a fight to Nielsen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Nielsen_(boxer)#Controversy
Right, I'm sorry for calling bull**** on you because I agree with all of this. But the fighter was not a 'fraud' and I think made up for this by knocking out Moorer after being outclassed and out of the ring for a while off the back of a loss. I certainly don't think he's a good shout for 'biggest fraud in sports history'.
Probably Promoter Howard Smith and colleague, and their defrauding of Wells Fargo Bank (?) to put on Lavish fight cards, some boxers did prosper from overly generous purses, it didnt take long for these revenue losing promotions to ring alarm bells, it was a subject of a book called "Ëmpire of Deceipt "
Raweed was a 4 time all star and NBA champion, a highly skilled player with an all around game. And a total dick.
Mark Gastineau needs a mention. He's nowhere close to being an ATG, but a fraud thread isn't complete without him.
Winner. I had almost forgotten about Howard Smith. If I recall correctly, he kind of came out of nowhere and started promoting fights, paying huge (for that time) paydays to fighters.
How dare you sir! I will let contemporary historian Nat Fleischer expose your revisionist lies! "Whenever opponents ran short, the astute Mr. Kearns could always rise to the occasion and dig up someone who, for a consideration, would 'take it on the jaw and turn a somersault.'" -The Heavyweight Championship, page 170
Rasheed Wallace? Huge waste of talent, yes But fraud? Hell no ... He had all the tools to be one of the best players ever ... a 7 footer with elite defense who can step out and shoot the 3 and had a very good post game is a "fraud"? He just didn't have that mentality to elevate him to the next level. He was happy to be on a winning team where he didn't have to carry the entire load ... lets not forget his epic battles with the refs