....could the fix be in? (guess which card I mean)

It doesnt man... not when you look at it from the perspective of the shot callers.

Theres a reason why there isnt an epidemic of overt fight fixing in boxing (overt meaning, fighters taking dives... as opposed to more covert methods like reffing and judging, which do happen because the way its set up is completely different)

A scheme this overt and this synchronized is simply unrealistic, imo.

If you are Lou Dibella... and Al Haymon... and Eddie Hearn... you have multi multi million dollar operations, you make millions of revenue every year, its a career that you will be in until you retire and ride off into the sunset... these guys like Wilder and Ortiz... they are just flavor of the month pawns to you. You have had big money fights again and again, and you will continue to do blockbuster fights long after guys like Wilder are retired and the next flavor of the months are manuevered into potential superfights.

To think the industry, smart men who know their position and know the game of boxing and plan on dominating it for as long as they can, would risk their entire empires, risk losing it all, risk prison, ect ect... to overtly fix matches to set up one fight, its just unrealistic. Between hacked messages, bitter fighters, fighters getting too drunk and leaking the secret, fighters telling their mrs and the mrs leaking it after a bad breakup, fighters writing tell all books after they retire, fighters trying to turn the tables and blackmail for more money, the list is endless of the very real possibilities of such a scheme unravelling.

These guys are too smart to risk a consistently succesful empire, empires they built with hard work, for one fight.

Just saying well if it makes money it makes sense is too simple and is proven wrong time and again when big fights fall through because the star loses.

Again thats not even getting into the idea that many millionaire champion level fighters that are actively in the mix would even be willing to take a dive.

Its just not realistic man... just imo though I guess.

 

That pulling off a believable dive is hard, was a tertiary point of the post. Of course its possible to pull of a dive. Its just not as easy as people think. The primary point is that boxing shot callers are too smart and have too much at stake to risk their empires for one fight trying to execute a conspiracy that has a dozen legitimate ways of falling apart.

 

I absolutely think Scott threw the fight. That doesnt mean he was coerced to do so, or even that anyone else but him knew he was going to do it.

Almost every case of a perceived legitimate dive come from fringe contenders. And in all those instances it as likely as the fighter threw the fight on his own accord and independent of any establishment rigging (fighters that do throw fights are often mid tier fighters, that often make big money by having large bets placed on the round they themselves know they will be going down in)

Just because a fighter throws a fight, doesnt mean there was an industry conspiracy to throw the fight. And just because in the history of boxing, there are examples of some fringe fighters throwing fights, doesn't set a realistic precedent to every matchup being suspect (imo)

That being said... this is boxing, do I think theres systemic corruption? Absolutely. Do I think that there is a possibility of shot callers making top fighters take dives? Its possible.

Is it probable or realistic enough to go around assuming or even being highly skeptical of high profile matchups between top 5 fighters being staged?

Not imo.