Fights that looked fixed to you

Joshua vs Ruiz 1
The fight just didn’t look real, most of the punches that knocked aj down didn’t land clean at all. There was one point where ruiz throws an arm jab and Joshua launches himself back. It also makes sense to fix this fight, bring in a fat guy most people have never heard of and pretty much everyone’s gonna put there money on aj, seems like real opportunity to make a lot of money. Fight was fixed just my opinion

 

Fights that look fixed.
Ali/Spinks 1.
Ali is held above reproach but if you go by the fight itself we have a champion enter the ring unfit to fight. With a motive to lose to an unqualified opponent to "make history".

So what happened?
The bell rang. Spinks came to fight and Ali didn't. Ali didnt fight basically for 14 rounds. He does come out in the 15th punching and somehow that means he didnt throw this fight?
Only One fighter was trying to win.

 

It's because AJ leaves his chin in the air and because of the speed of Ruiz's punches. Not fixed, AJ looked like losing way too much money

 

What's in it for Moorer to lose the golden goose?

Moorer stupidly stood toe to toe with Foreman and paid the price.

 

Moore v Patterson always looked fixed to me. Such an odd “KO” and fight that even his trainer accused him of fixing the fight. Not saying it was fixed just always looked funny to me

 

Johnson V Ketchel looks fixed to me.
Maybe my eyes are deceiving me but it sorta looks like Johnson is going down before ketchel's punch even lands.

 

Tyson vs Seldon - don’t know if it was pre arranged or Seldon just intimidated into quitting but he found a way out.

wilder Malik Scott- Wilder throws a right hand that replays show never connected followed by a left “slap” hook and Scott goes down- Wilder than proceeds to turn his back to his opponent and celebrate never even checking to see if Scott would get up - hardly the actions one would expect unless it was designed to go down that way and it was

 

I believe that Johnson was carrying him until he got careless and Ketchel nailed him with an overhand that landed flush. All that did was pizz Jack off and he then killed Stanley . He could have done that in any previous round. The outcome was never fixed ,just the length of the fight.

 

I always felt the same about this fight, it had to be fixed, there were some points in the fight where Spinks looks more gassed than Ali and Ali just stands there doing nothing

 

Maybe, but out of four knockdowns none of them are from clean shots, and how do you explain Ruiz’s arm jab and Joshua hurling himself back, it looks more like bad acting than a real fight

 

Bruce Seldon fights. The only guy I've ever seen who can get knocked down before he gets hit lol.

 

I utterly agree with you on Seldon, Griff, which was shameful (the little stagger he did when he realised the fight was not going to be called off was pathetic . When Tyson stoppped Bruno in his next fight, and the American media were mocking Frank, Colin Hart, a famous English boxing writer, said 'At least our guy took his lumps.').

But nothing will convince me that the Moorer kayo was, or should have been, a devastating one. I'll list my points in the hope it makes for a less rambling argument.

1. Was George ever a devastating one shot merchant? Undoubtedly a very heavy handed monster but George tended to club opponents down with accumulative blows. Frazier was a notoriously slow starter and in poor shape but Foreman couldn't keep him down despite landing power shots at will for the best part of a round. He clubbed Lyle down with a series of blows but no single shot unlike when Ron fought Shavers or Ali even. Ron's chin wasn't granite and George landed plenty on it before Ron stayed down. And this was prime Foreman not the version of 20 year later who had had one fight in nearly two years which he lost to a man who would go on to get knocked out in one round in his next fight to Michael Bentt.

2. Foreman's form before and after the Moorer fight. In the three and a half years after his effort vs Holyfield, George really struggles to beat Alex Stewart and loses to Tommy Morrison. After the Moorer fight, he fails to stop Schulz, Savarese and Grimsley. With all due respect to these guys, with the exception of Schulz, they could all be put away. Just not by George.

And in the very middle of all of that underwhelming run, he one shots the champion.

3. Moorer always got back up. While no McCall in the chin, Moorer had taken the bombs of Alex Stewart and Bert Cooper and come back. Before anyone says but that's not like being hit by Foreman, Cooper had Holyfield in a world of trouble, much more than George ever did. Bert could hit and he was up for Moorer as it was following on from the Evander fight. Moorer came back from being hit by Bert. He came back from being hit by Stewart. He got up again and again versus Holyfield. Without getting into conspiracy theories, he did seem to fold very handily against Foreman and lay on the ground with his eyes open showing none of the heart that he had shown before that fight and would go on to show after it.

4. The eye test. Sorry but no matter how often I watch it, I just don't see that shot looking truly devastating. Foreman doesn't put his whole weight behind it, just the weight of his arm. There's no footwork, no bending of the knees, no pivot of the hip or snap of the shoulder. His face is unplacable, no straining with effort. He doesn't look like he's putting much into it and the end result for me is a bit of an arm punch. More cuff than haymaker. His big uppercuts vs Frazier looked devastating; he had spread his legs and was bending his knees, he turned his hip in and snapped the shoulder. Basically everything that the kayo punch of Moorer didn't feature. Normally when a huge shot lands - Frazier's hook v Ali, Shavers' right on Holmes, Hearns' right v Duran, Foster's hook v Quarry (or Tiger) you know where the power comes from. In this case nobody can give a stronger explanation than it's because Foreman is 260lbs and really strong.

So there you have it. Sorry to have gone on so long but I am like @JohnThomas1 on this. I have a hard time accepting it. I'm not quite so convinced it was a fix as @klompton2 is but he makes a really sound point. If a fighter was in the middle of a run in which he failed to stop the likes of Stewart, Morrison, Schulz, Grimley and Savarese but scores a one shot over the heavyweight champ with little more than a cuff, people would be all over it screaming fix. But because it's George, he gets a pass. And the credit goes to some otherworldy power that was not otherworldy enough to stop the half dozen eminently stoppable guys he fought before and after.

I'm with Klompton2. I think it's rum.

PS how refreshing to have a Foreman thread without CharlieTF, CombatesdeBoxeo, ForemanandDempsey or whatever he's calling himself all over it like a bad smell, abusing everyone who dares to question his beloved GF.

And GF stands for George Foreman. Don't know quite what some of you were thinking there.

 

I think Hagler agreed to fight from the wrong side for the first three rounds against SRL as a condition of Leonard taking the fight. That's why Hagler has to this day such disdain for him and the decision. I think Hagler also agreed to carry Duran the distance as a condition of making the fight with a big payoff. Which is why he was so worried about getting screwed waiting for the decision to be read, which is the dominant memory I have of this fight.

I also will always believe James Scott deliberately cuffed himself against Dwight Braxton in their fight at Rahway. I don't know if he could've beaten him straight up, but it looked like he was boxing awfully soft and with unusual careful tentativeness.

Bet there are hundreds and hundreds of fights that were fixed that we don't know about. Just reread the James Salerno bio and his painful journal description of how he found out afterwards his second fight with Leslie Stewart was rigged with his own manager agreeing to allow Steward's manager to pick the three judges, then not bringing his mouthguard on fight day and then learning afterwards that this manager bet on him to lose and admitted he won $70,000 as a result.

 

Okay so I've timestamped the fight from when Ruiz touches down. Look at the exchange after:

1. Note the distance between Joshua's chin and chest as he's punching. His chin is really high. This is called leaving your chin out to dry

2. There's one left hook to the temple after that and you see Joshua's legs and body sway back and forth. What's happened is the temple, ie the right side of Joshua skull, shot caused the brain to bounce against both sides of the skull causing trauma. Remember the temple is the thinest part of the skull. Then he misses a few but lands a right on the other side of his temple just before he goes down.

 

Seriously? How would that contractually even hold up in court? Hagler thought orthodox probably because of his ego and possibly because he fancied getting his straight left off