3 Famous Matches That Were Almost Certainly Fixed
All the Fixins’
Sports have been a favorite past-time of humanity for many years. The first sports were a bit more brutal than the ones today, but they helped pave the way for more and more sophisticated sports. Today nearly every sport you can imagine is played at a high professional level, and comes with it an entire sub-culture, economy, and fan base.
Sports today are quite literally a multi-billion dollar industry. With player deals, stadium tickets, advertising and merchandising, there is a lot of money in circulation. Because there is so much money involved, of course there are those with ambition and guile that don’t want to leave it all to chance. As a result, there have been throughout the ages many fixed matches, which, while immoral, have made some select people very rich.
Here is a list of sports games that were almost definitely rigged by some financially savvy, morally bankrupt individuals:
Manny Pacquiano Vs. Timothy Bradley - The famous fighter Manny Pacquiano was scheduled to fight fan favorite Mayweather, in a bout that was certain to draw crowds from all over the world to spectate. Before Manny could do this however, he had to fight Timothy Bradley. While many who unofficially scored the fight declared Manny the winner, a strange split decision from the judges gave the fight to Timothy Bradley. Many speculate they did this in order to milk the anticipation building for Mayweather and and Manny. The two ended up squaring off two more additional times and both times Manny suspiciously won the matches by sweep decisions from the judges.
Those who enjoy betting on sports online particularly were upset with this because all the hard work, studying, and calculating they do to make the right bet doesn’t matter much if the whole fight is rigged.
Super Bowl III - While this one happened a long time ago, that does not make it any less relevant. To tell the story of the third ever Super Bowl in the NFL, first you have to know that the first 2 Super Bowls were both won by the Green Bay Packers. The first game was against the Kansas City Chiefs, the second, the Oakland Raiders. Both of these games the Packers took with a sweeping victory, so when the third Super Bowl rolled around, fans were expecting more of the same.
The third Super Bowl was a showdown between the New York City Jets and the Colts. The Colts were heavily favored going into the match with an intimidating 13-1 record. Only one of those games they scored under 20 points. In Super Bowl III, suddenly they only scored 7 points, leading many to believe they were paid off to balance the league’s out for more entertaining matches.
2000 NBA Western Conference Finals - With Kobe Bryant and Shaq, the Lakers were the heavy favorite against the Trail Blazers, who nobody thought was going to win, especially when the Lakers were up 2 games in a best of 5 series. Miraculously the Trail Blazers would win two games in a row, and nearly take the third, but a foul allowed the Lakers to come back in movie-like fashion and take the victory.
