Boxing always has been and always will be corrupt. If you look at the modern era where pretty much every fight gets widely available with slow motion replays, there are probably fewer dives but they are still there. But the most common form is bought judges (i.e. Lewis-Holyfield I), referees clearly favoring one fighter (see Bute vs Andrade last weekend), timekeepers stopping the round earlier, etc etc.
In Bunce's defence, he is adding 2 and 2 together and making four. With the obvious exceptions (Pep/Perez; Fox/LaMotta come straight to mind); it is very hard to completely prove what was and was not on the level. But with the people connected to the sport perhaps not being the best role models, I think we can be pretty sure there were hundreds if not thousands of fights in the era (and earlier) that were resolved before the first bell.
There was definately dives and corruption, its just how much corruption, how many dives. And was the dive of big name fighters or mainly smaller names? Putting a dive on an undercard would prompt less investigation and make more sense. Also doesn't the money the boxer could make being a champ outweigh what he can make taking a dive?
I don't think it was a question of how much a boxer could make for taking a dive. More like a question of how much "the Mob" could make on the betting. The boxers, some champions were just pawns and didn't really have a choice.
He was a few feet away from the corner where just about every fighter stands during a knockdown without interfering the count. But okay, strictly speaking, it was according to the rules. What about the referee stopping the count at 8 or 9 and pulling Krasniqi up instead of counting him out against Brewster?
Actually if you look at the overhead Andrade was near the centre of the room, you can sees hes near the centre of the ring, which is an infraction, the count doesn't start unless a fighter is in the neutral corner. I didn't see Krasniqi-Brewster I'll give you some examples of hometown refs though: 1. Otke-Reid - Reid got warned for punching Otke. I'm sure other Otke fights had a hometown ref 2. Calzaghe - premature stoppage against Mitchell and a few others. Mitchell threw the last punch and had just put Joe down the previous round, Joe came on well though. 3. Hatton - was allowed to blatantly break the rules under Warren, the Tyszu fight is the famous 1 but he had some worse rule infractions in less notable fights go unpunnished
This is the part I don't get. There is bigtime money that gets wagered on these fights. You think that if this is widespread enough, the FBI would deliver a RICO indictment to promoters, boxing orgs, judges, etc. for widespread racketeering. On the corrupt fights from 1945-60, I think it's wise to look at the early history of pro wrestling. Used to be in the very early days that the winner would be determined based on who the "marks" (the people that didn't know it was fixed) bet the most money on, and the bookies would have whichever wrestler win based on who would make them the most money. This changed once the wrestler that was the "recognized champion" became independently wealthy enough to the point that he wasn't dependent on crooked promoters and bookies for his money, and so he started to manage his own fights. Of course over time in the early part of the century, you would occasionally get the shooter wrestler in there that would pull a double-cross in the ring and manage to beat the champ off of pure ability and the champ not being a legitimately good wrestler to be able to defend himself, but it retained its fixed nature. It could be in this time frame that you had boxers that were setup the same way as wrestling with bookies taking advantage of an unsuspecting crowd and bettors to get an arranged result that was the most profitable.
Well it's hard to prove. For instance, scoring a round is a very subjective thing. Even in a blatant case of Lewis vs Holyfield where Eugenia Williams scored rounds for Holyfield when he was absolutely pounded, nothing happened. Yes, she was embarrassed by an interview when she stated they had their backs to her, which was disproved by film, but even at that, she's still happily judging and filling her pockets as we speak. Same with referees: how can you really prove anything? If he warned only one fighter on fouls, he can easily say that he thought that fighter made worse fouls that the other. It's complex. Everyone knows King is corrupt as hell (as are many promotors), but no one does anything about it. Another blatant, recent example is Danny Williams vs Eirich (spelling). The Turkish promoter actually went to the timekeeper to tell him to stop the round early when his man was in trouble. It was clearly on film and absolutely nothing was done about it! The curroption has roots too deep.
Is that the fight Williams ended up winning by TKO? Eirich (or whatever his name was) had Williams in trouble early but Williams came back to drop him two or three times. Are we on the same wavelength?
The mob influence on Sonny Liston's career has been a topic of serious discussion in other threads. I still think Liston took a dive in the second Ali fight because that right hand was nowhere near strong enough to really hurt Liston. The real corruption of the sport was that Archie Moore was denied a shot at the light heavyweight title for years. It's shameful and disrespectful that he wasn't given more consideration for the light heavyweight title in his prime years.
Yes it was. A great fight actually. Williams' finish was an excellent display of combination punching and fast hands (despite his 265lbs).. such a wasted talent. That was one of the most sloppy managed fights i've seen in a while, though. A corrupt time keeper in several rounds, Williams being giving an 8 count when he was as much as wobbled (hence losing the first three rounds or so by 10 8), the tapes on the gloves being loose all the time, even up to the finish.... Reminds me of one of Valuev's early, obscure fights against some journeyman. The referee stopped the fight on a TKO in the 5th, but the crowd got mad, threw bottles and what not, so they decided to continue the fight.. then the lights just go off in the middle of the next round, after that, the referee steps out of the ring during the fight....
I was shocked at the blatant corruption and the general ineptness in that fight. I'm sure William's opponent also received a slow count along the way...maybe I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall that. I felt so sorry for Williams in that fight; to fight in those consitions was just not right and I literally leaped for joy when he won...those corrupt ****ing *******s couldn't deny him eventually. That Valuev story is highly amusing (but also shocking)...what the heck is going on over there??
