Fixed Fights?

Boxing history is littered with bogus fights. Most famously during the 40s/50s, when USA boxing was controlled by the mob, fight fixing was rampant.

Everyone knows about LaMotta-Fox, Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinson was offered bribes on numerous occasions, Joe Louis gave up his title to create a false champ to earn money, before then you had Carnera-Sharkey and greats like Joe Gans blatantly throwing fights, and after that the Liston-Clay stuff, even Duran-Leonard 2 is questioned.

Clearly throwing fights these days would be far harder because of TV, internet, media etc, plus fighters have the advantage of fighting less but earn more. However, Emanuel Augustus blatantly pretended to be KO'd againt Allan Vester about 10 years ago.

Could this still be happening?

Rampant? That's awfully strong. Not even Barney Nagler, the man who best covered that era in boxing and decried the roles of Frankie Carbo, Blinky Palermo etc.

There have likely been occasionally fixed fights as long as there have been fights.

I'd love to know what evidence you have for the Carnera-Sharkey fight as the Boston Gob denied it until his dying day and I've never gotten a good "fix" on that one. ;)

Boxing is the easiest game in the world to fix. Why? It only takes the agreement of one guy.

I'd be shocked if their wasn't occasionally a fixed fight today.

I think you're wrong about the reasons it might be harder today though. There are fewer fights on TV than there were 50 years ago for example. I think the issue is being able to make money on a fix. Seems to me trying to make a score in Vegas is asking to get caught. 50 years ago EVERYONE followed the fights and then so did all the bookies. So one could get bets down on fights easily. With boxing so shrunken today I wonder how many bookies offer odds on anything but superfights.

Rampant was probably a bit strong. I don't have evidence other than the stories i've read/heard.

However, you can bet on any televised/internet streamed fight today. Betting exchanges make sure of that.

Any irregular betting paterns are quickly detected, and the betting suspended. So it would be pretty hard to pull off major coups these days. Also anything dodgy they can refuse to pay out on. In fact, it is virtually impossible to throw a fight these days and make a substantial amount of dough.

What makes me laugh is - all the reports of old timers throwing fights, why did they make it so obvious? How could these old bookies have been so dumb? Madness.

Mike Tyson vs Bruce Seldon was very iffy.

Combined effort and even two judges families could make hundreds of thousands!

Thats a bit far fetched but you can bet its been tried out to a degree.

Imagine the mob giving you as a judge an offer you cant refuse,it could account for some of those unbelievable scores.

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Rampant was probably a bit strong. I don't have evidence other than the stories i've read/heard.

However, you can bet on any televised/internet streamed fight today. Betting exchanges make sure of that.

Any irregular betting paterns are quickly detected, and the betting suspended. So it would be pretty hard to pull off major coups these days. Also anything dodgy they can refuse to pay out on. In fact, it is virtually impossible to throw a fight these days and make a substantial amount of dough.

What makes me laugh is - all the reports of old timers throwing fights, why did they make it so obvious? How could these old bookies have been so dumb? Madness.

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Good point on the bold.

On your last, I suspect, but cannot prove, the reports were often exxagerated. The only really certain fixed fights in the Palermo/Norris/Carbo era were the Billy Fox LaMotta fight and Ike Williams -Chuck Davey. The damage the Mob really did was in simply robbing fighters of their money over and over again. Too many fixed fights would have killed the golden goose.

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Originally Posted by Andre

Combined effort and even two judges families could make hundreds of thousands!

Thats a bit far fetched but you can bet its been tried out to a degree.

Imagine the mob giving you as a judge an offer you cant refuse,it could account for some of those unbelievable scores.

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Tru but Fenster makes a good point on the difficulties making money with it today.

I dont think they are so rampantly fixed today as they are pre determined and geared towards a sure fire outcome...stacked. Ever see some of these matches in Thailand and on God knows how many untelivised (or in the case of Deontay Wilder ;D) undercard shows? We all have visions of smoke filled back rooms and plain white envelopes under the table when its widely shoved in the fans faces. You don't need to fix a fight to get away with highway robbery. Guys 'except' their roles, boxings fodder fo the masses as journeymen padders are the early lifeblood of the sport. I know, a bit jaded.

Fixed fights? The U.S. Mob in the 40's 50's 60's comes to mind, and of course, the one the only Don King!

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Originally Posted by Spicoli

I dont think they are so rampantly fixed today as they are pre determined and geared towards a sure fire outcome...stacked. Ever see some of these matches in Thailand and on God knows how many untelivised (or in the case of Deontay Wilder ;D) undercard shows? We all have visions of smoke filled back rooms and plain white envelopes under the table when its widely shoved in the fans faces. You don't need to fix a fight to get away with highway robbery. Guys 'except' their roles, boxings fodder fo the masses as journeymen padders are the early lifeblood of the sport. I know, a bit jaded.

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I'm not sure that has EVER been more common than it is today.

There really were for decades and decades a whole bunch of fighters in each division who could really compete with, not beat very often, but compete with the top guys. Now the gap between the really top guys and the next level seems mismatch-wide.

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Originally Posted by ICB

Mike Tyson vs Bruce Seldon was very iffy.

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The outcome in that fight was due more to fear (Seldon) than it being fixed

Harrison v Haye was very dubious :o

Don't think it was fixed... I do think it was a complete mismatch and that Haye could have done what he did in the third round from the opening second of the fight.

He foolishly said at the end of the fight that he told all of his friends to stick money on Haye in the third and look what happens.

I'm sure there are many judges and doctors that are on the payroll, but that's a whole different topic.

What about the recent Briggs/ Green fight ???

There's a huge difference between a fighter going down "easy" (quitting) and one that is intentionally taking a dive.

Those old fighters were taking dives for big money, which was clearly funded by the mobsters conning the bookies.

LaMotta was offered $100,000 for that Fox dive. Consider his purse was just $20,000, you can see the incentive for these old timers (although obviously in LaMotta's case he was desperate for a title shot). The gangsters were clearly making a killing.