A fix or not a fix? And does it matter?
Published by Charles Jay on December 3rd, 2008 in Operation Cleanup

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Commentary on MMA history….as it’s happening

A FIX OR NOT A FIX? AND DOES IT MATTER?

Some years ago, I got a call from a sportswriter acquaintance of mine. He had just finished a multi-part series on “fixed” fights, and for evidence used, among other things, videotapes of fighters who went down without being hit, or who quit inexplicably in the middle of a fight.

He asked me what I thought of his work. While I replied that it was well-written and reflected some time and research on his part, I told him that he missed the story. What I went on to explain was that there could be a tremendous difference between a fighter taking a dive and a fighter involved in a fix. In other words, the two were not mutually inclusive of each other.

Fighters can take dives of their own volition, and I suspect that many have. For some of them, it’s just something they have conditioned themselves to do. In fact, I spoke with some of the people who were peripherally involved in some of the “fixed” fights detailed in this series, and they told me that not only was there not a “plot” to fix some of these bouts, but some of the fighters were actually offered bonuses to stay upright longer but went down anyway.

I think it’s a serious thing to allege a fix, and when I was involved in the boxing business I would hear people in the industry throw that term around very loosely, as it involved fighters, judges or commissions, and I severely warned against it. That’s because if you are over-using the term - crying wolf, if you will - it is going to have a lot less effect when it is really true.

Fixing fights is not a one-way thing. In other words, it is not a unilateral decision. There is collaboration; there is conspiracy. And although this may not be “textbook,” it is generally the custom that when there is a fix, the fighter is being paid to lose, or to affect a specific kind of result, concretely and directly.

By those standards, we have no evidence that the fight between Kimbo Slice and Seth Petruzelli was, in the classic sense, a fix or even an attempted fix, as has been bandied around by some members of the internet press. We have no evidence that Petruzelli was told to take a dive, or to do anything in particular that would compromise his ability to win the fight.

But a fight doesn’t have to be fixed to have something that went on that wasn’t kosher. According to the stories we have been able to piece together, there seems to be some consensus that through a bonus offer, Petruzelli was urged to tailor his game plan in a certain way. Those officials of the now-defunct Elite XC who apparently conveyed the offer, a group that includes the infamous Jeremy Lappen and Jared Shaw, the son of the former de facto promoter of the company, Gary Shaw, were not asking Petruzelli to lose the fight, nor were they suggesting that his future would be brighter if he did not win the fight against Kimbo (as far as we know). However, if Petruzelli is to be believed in some of his post-fight comments, they were obviously looking to nudge him in a certain direction.

And in turn, that direction was intended not necessarily to disadvantage Petruzelli, to encourage him to do something he didn’t do well (engage exclusively in a stand-up), but to avoid at all costs the occasion by which Kimbo Slice would himself be at a disadvantage (a ground fight). As such, while it was not a fix, there was an accord, an arrangement of sports; kind of like a boxer who is asked not to throw any left hooks at his opponent, or a basketball team that is asked not to throw the ball inside to Shaquille O’Neal, or, if they’re on the other side, not to FOUL Shaq, a notoriously bad shooter from the line. Or, as was suggested by Kenny Florian in a story written in the Boston Herald, “I equate it to the NFL commissioner going out there and telling the Patriots [team stats], ‘Don’t throw the ball this game, I want you guys to run the whole time. We’ll give you an extra bonus if you don’t throw the ball.’ That’s crazy,”

It’s also unnatural. And manipulative. For those people familiar with the movie “Wag the Dog,” it’s more like a pageant.

Even if it ain’t a fix, there ain’t nothing good about it.

We’ll discuss.