Tell with a straight face that boxing ...
 

isn't rigged.

Watched the Holyfield-Giant Russian fight today. Was not a great fight by any stretch, but Holyfield very clearly won as the Russian hardly threw a punch and hardly moved all night. Yet a decision was given to the Russian and the whole crowd knew it was wrong.

Used to follow closely, much more casual these days but I think I'm done with this "sport" which now has more in common with professional wrestling than actual combat.

just one reason why we had the whole MMA debate. It's the main reason that MMA is growing and boxing is dying.

Yeah, but MMA won't be immune to it. It may happen there at some point if it hasn't already.

Team games, while they can be rigged, are much harder to manipulate truly effectively, especially over the course of a season. Individual competitors - boxing, MMA, horses, whatever - are much easier to control.

In this case it was a little sad - Holyfield didn't fight a great fight but he definitely deserved the nod. What's worse, it was on terrestrial TV not pay-per-view, and so the chance to attract a new audience has pretty well vanished.

Was it ever NOT?

You know that famous picture of Mohammad Ali roaring over a fallen Sonny Liston? He wasn't gloating at having dropped him. He was screaming at him to not take such an obvious dive, to wait until later in the bout when it would be more credible.

The thing with boxing is, you've got solo competitors out there, and massive amounts of money on the line. It's almost unthinkable that corruption wouldn't be part of the game.

Okay, okay, you're going to have to back that one up...

Oh, I've heard that story before. Liston was DEEP into gambling and organized crime.

I don't know if that story is completely accurate, but I wouldn't at all be surprised.

I'm not a big fan of two-guys-beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other sports anyway, like boxing, MMA, wrestling and hockey, so I don't feel too bad that the sport is essentially dead. From a historical perspective, though, it's sad to see two of the original Big Three sports (baseball, boxing and horse racing) completely irrelevant.

At the end of the day, there are fixes in every sport.

I didnt see this fight and wasnt planning to - its a bit of a freak show and neither of them belong anywhere near a world title fight, just a sorry consequence of the alphabet soup of championships.
-----Added 21/12/2008 at 06 : 43 : 48-----
Oh, and I dont really understand judging a whole sport that is 100's years old by a bad bout. Check out Carl Froch vs Jean Pascal's recent bout for the super middle title - awesome fight between two great boxers. Nothing in MMA can come close to the level of skill, toughness and heart shown in that bout.

Oh, no - here we go again.

Well, Im not the one who started "boxing is all fixed, its dying lets watch MMA"

Does anyone here suppose the Ray Mercer vs Kimbo Slice fight was straight up??

I never said all of boxing was fixed. There are still some really great fights out there.. I'm just saying that there is a lot of this crap in boxing. Anyway, I'm not about to start this argument again as I've seen plenty of MMA bouts that destroy just about any boxing match I've ever seen.. but it's all in the eye of the beholder..

/kills threadjack before it even starts.

im yet to see it, but from what ive read it wasnt a comprehensive win to valuev. everyone wanted holyfield to win..who didnt..but imagine the farce if a 46 yeor old ex champ actually won. do you really think that that's credible too?

just curious...what boxing sites does everyone read?

At least Holyfield looked like a boxer and tried to fight a little. The Russian looks like Andre the Giant, no physical conditioning at all, and never moved an inch from the centre of the ring. Shades of Primo Carnera.

I hope I look as good at 46 as Holyfield does. No fat on him!

I will agree that MMA appears to be more credible, but I think their is room to debate corruption in UFC. I think Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson beat Forrest Griffin 4 rounds to 1. Griffin kicked more, but Rampage countered better and hit a lot harder. I think he convincingly won 4 rounds..

Holyfield has done nothing to deserve a title shot (this was his first fight in a year coming off a loss) - but all the reports I read were that Holyfield was bad and Valuev was worse.

This fight never should have been for a world title in any case... Valuev belongs in a circus and Holyfield should retire

Yep, I reckon it was. Mercer is old and has no clue what he's doing inside a cage, he dropped his neck into Kimbo's guillotine and had no clue how to get out of it. That said Kimbo is inexperienced in a cage and doesn't know what he's doing aside from standing there and exchanging punches.

So yeah the fight was straight up, inexperience beat the old man, neither fighter has a hope in hell of being one of the tops in the sport though.

I would like to find a site where adults can discuss boxing and agree to disagree.

I know I'm late, but it's not even controversial that Ali was yelling "Get Up" at him and was mad for the obvious dive.

However...
isn't necessarily logical extrapolation, and I hadn't heard any sources claim Ali was in on the fix.

It already happened in MMA to. Watch the first Elite XC CBS show.


But then again Gary Shaw is a boxing promoter trying his hand in MMA.
-----Added 13/1/2009 at 12 : 58 : 58-----
That happens in both sports as well.