Great article on how boxing no more shady then other pro sports

Sport #1 and Sport #2 both take wagers. They both feature one athlete vs. one athlete making it very easy to fix matches.

One of Sport #1’s most successful athletes, a champion, is under serious investigation for match fixing. He has inextricable ties to the mob and many shady match results. An investigation is launched in that sport which reveals 45 possible fixed matches in the last five years, matches involving some of its biggest stars.

A google search for [Sport #2, Gambling, Scandal] brings up nothing for 10 google pages except mentions of Sport #1. There has been only slight whiffs of match fixing in decades and none involving Sport #2’s superstars.

Nevertheless the conventional wisdom still prevails that Sport #1 is clean and Sport #2 is dirty. Even people who love the sport, myself included, engage in the stereotyping (see this post) and the assumptions. Of course as Tim from Ring Report – perhaps the Internet’s best boxing analysis site – revealed in his comment to my post, Sport #1 is tennis and Sport #2 is boxing.
http://everyjoe.com/sports/why-do-we-think-boxing-is-dirtier-than-tennis-despite-the-facts-96/

Good article, Grant. However, I'd tell the author the truth. People will always think boxing is fixed because of the drama and interest involved in the sport. Maybe it's just me, but I don't know how I could even suspect a tennis match is fixed. How would I know? If one of the Williams sisters gets defeated by an unknown, I wouldn't 2nd guess the result. Their hitting a ball over a net (yeah, I know it's very difficult but that's how it looks.). The styles of boxers are more obvious to the human eye (well, at least my eyes). For example, if Manny Pacquiao just happened to get knocked out by a feather fisted fighter, it would catch my attention. This is just my opinion, but if Jake La Motta and Billy Fox were tennis players, I don't think Congress could've proved their match was fixed, nor would it have cared.

interesting for sure..gee the lilly white sport of the rich at one time..the fancy folks are far more dirtier then boxing..

Interesting article. The thing is it's much easier to throw a boxing match than a tennis match.

In a fight you can: A) just go down from a punch (especially a body shot) and not get up, really hard to prove a dive; or
B) just don't move your hands enough and lose a decision while protecting yourself.

In a tennis match to have to miss shots and lose rallies over a long period of time before you can actually lose a match. It would look more suspect based on the volume of mistakes you have to make.

Also tennis has an international regulatory body that actually works, whereas boxing is a such a confusing mishmash of promoters and sanctioning bodies it can look totally corrupt even if it isn't. Personally I can't recall ever seeing a fight I thought was fixed, all the fixing I see goes on in the matchmaking and the rankings.

Tobe wrote:Interesting article. The thing is it's much easier to throw a boxing match than a tennis match.

In a fight you can: A) just go down from a punch (especially a body shot) and not get up, really hard to prove a dive; or
B) just don't move your hands enough and lose a decision while protecting yourself.

In a tennis match to have to miss shots and lose rallies over a long period of time before you can actually lose a match. It would look more suspect based on the volume of mistakes you have to make.

I don't agree. It's much harder to throw a fight, because it's almost impossible to pull off and not look suspect. Look at how many people think Oscar layed down for Hops.

Tennis match or any kind game, player can just not play their best, and say there game was off, and people by it.

Add on, so many different parties involved in a single boxing match, it makes nearly impossible to have them all work together. Got usualy two different promoters, TV crew, the media, the audience. Even when promoters go in-house, if their top fighter loses, guess what, they got the winner in theire promotion, and can then hype them up. Arum a master of that.

Add on, why would promoter take risk of going to jail for fight fixing, when can just match his top guy up with a total bum or shot fighter, and then just hype that fighter up as a legit oppoent. Fuck, what Arum doing with Pac-Mosley.

Going back a few years I was involved with some businessmen that were involved with sports betting. (ahem...) There was a time when we were getting more allegations of fixes in tennis than boxing. Mostly you can watch the money to see a trend. If the #3 player in the world is playing the #105 player, and money is rolling in on Mr. 105, then you best believe the fix is in. Most betting houses will suspend betting on that match. If they are a legal house, such as Ladbrokes, etc., they will report it, and that particular match will be scrutinized.