I am currently reading Battling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder in the 1920s One thing that has struck me is the lengths Carpentiers manager went to have the bout between Siki and Carpentier fixed. This made me think that Georges had to have multiple fights fixed in his favor especially important fights that could have been a threat. My second question is who are some other legendary fighters you believed may have been created figures. Fighters who had multiple bouts fixed in their favor? Also what bouts from history do you swear had to be fixed.
Idk how you're defining 'fixed' but I swear both of Taylors wins over Hopkins were predetermined by HBO, Hopkins could only win by stoppage
In this era, the vast majority of fights are fixed, and fixed by the matchmaking. By that I mean that the fight is made, with the understanding of all parties involved, that one of the participants is not expected to win and has no chance of winning.
That’s different. As long as the ‘opponent’ gives an honest effort and tries to win it’s a legit result. There was a guy from our gym, I had him for a few amateur fights and he was nothing special but real tough. He was already well into his 20s and needed money and wanted to turn pro. We got him a few fights against guys with losing records or just starting and he won a couple and lost a couple. He kind of disappeared but a little later started fighting again with a different gym across town. He ended up like 5-9 but one of those wins he won a decision over a 19-0 guy. Now that was ‘fixed’ by your definition, he was there to lose but he didn’t go along with the script. They rematches him and the now 19-1 guy put a whupping on him. But the guy who won the first fight fought just as hard as he did the first time — he didn’t lay down, just the naturally better guy took it more seriously and came more ready. That kind of fight is no more fixed than Michigan playing Appalachian State (one of college football’s biggest upsets) or Virginia with Ralph Sampson playing tiny Chaminade (the biggest upset in college basketball history). Or Buster Douglas against Mike Tyson, for that matter.
I'm sure that you have been part of the process of picking opponents for your fighters. You not only look to win, but to look good doing so. That it why there are so many fighters that are 18-0, with 16 kos in the first 2 rounds. There are the exceptions, because stuff happens. But, for the most part, those fights are fixed. I don't think that, on the majority of cases, the opponent goes in trying to win, so far as his mental state goes. And to make sure he doesn't, you keep the opponent "TBA" until the last minute and then bring him in.
A very hard book to read. Does not flow. As for fixed fights Ali-Liston 2 Primo-Sharkey Leonard-Duran 2 Kovalec -Ward Kovalev-Canelo Weaver-Dokes Tyson-Seldon/Black Rhino Toney-Siberi deLaHoya-Sturm DeLaHoya-Hopkins
There’s a difference between a fix and a mismatch. In the first round of Wimbledon, Roger Federer is going to be fed a guy who’s 117th in the world or something. And he’s going to win. But the result was not pre-arranged. In boxing fixed means the losing fighter takes a dive, goes down without being hit hard enough to knock him down and stays down; or the judge/ref are bought off. That’s not what you described. Every coach in any sport wants his team or player to win every time. In professional leagues there are mismatches but there’s also a predetermined schedule. Yet we also know there have been crooked outcomes — point-shaving or the Black Sox scandal, etc. Those are different than one team just being better than the other and the expected outcome happening. As for what we did, for the most part when I was in boxing I managed and trained and my brother promoted. Most of our guys were club fighters — the one who went farthest in my time in it got a USBA title fight. We had anywhere from 5 to 10 local guys (a few of whom we used regularly who were not ‘ours’ but sold tickets or helped fill out the card) and while we wanted to win we wanted to put on good cards. They mostly took turns main eventing — six or eight rounds, eventually some 10s, and whoever was in the main event would get a tough fight and we wanted the undercard bouts to be competitive (which, to be frank, wasn’t hard as a lot of our guys were either vets who had been .500 or worse fighters who happened to be from the area or guys without much amateur experience, some tough man fighters, etc.). For the ones who we thought might be able to get somewhere — at least, say, main event in casinos that were always looking for ‘opponents’ where we might stand a chance to beat a non-contender main eventer from a state within driving distance — we wanted them to be tested if they were going to do that. So we tried to expose them to different styles: aggressive fighters, movers, at least one southpaw, maybe a caveman-type slugger. I’d rather get a guy to, say, 12-2 or 11-3 with four or five pretty tough fights under his belt than 14-0 with 12 first-round knockouts. We took a guy who moved to our area at 1-4 with four KO losses to 18-11-2, got him a win for a regional title and a few big paydays on the road (including outside the U.S.) Our best job was a guy who was I-kid-you-not 1-35-1 and he ended up 18-54-2. He didn’t live locally but he’d jump on a bus, work out for a week and fight a fellow opponent with a losing record and instead of getting murdered by a 24-1 guy he’d be in a fair fight with a 3-6 guy. He fought from lightweight to cruiser — he had a habit of doing short stints in jail (say six months, usually minor drug offense type stuff; had two scars from bullet holes) and he would actually gain all kinds of weight because when he’d be in jail he’d eat and eat. We gave him a ‘black cowboy’ gimmick with a big cowboy hat and a Western vest and he’d saunter to the ring to Hank Williams Jr’s “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” and the crowd would go nuts — he was a free-swinging brawler and just a fun guy but he’d fight his ass off. Good times. Thanks for making me remember them.
too many to mention... though in the case of many a fighter, who didn't meet or fight fighters they should have, this was mostly down to corrupt Managers, Promoters and Board Members. disgusting people really, when kids, because that's what these young fighters are, kids, anyway they put their heart & soul into a Top Level Career, only to be Criminally Assaulted in some cases. Refs too, in the Pocket, Sports Writers, Managers, Backers & Money Men, Insuring their Invested Returns. London's Top people were well connected, which Included many a fighter, there was even an Interview with one of them a few years ago, talking about fights "he couldn't win" against British Secured Hopefuls. Ring Mag fixing Ratings, Jake's court hearings, Mob & Promoters, one only need look at the above professions to see whom all hung out together to know the fix was in.
