35 years since the ultimate screw job

Didn't Evander Holyfield get jobbed in the Olympics, too?

 

Not really.
He drew an arguably legit DQ for hitting after the break. He got to appeal it and lost. Nothing like what happened to Jones.

 

I know this isn't related to that Olympics, or even a screw job, but someone previously mentioned how this Olympics wasn't short on excitement/controversy - Pre, Shorter, this scandal, Spitz, etc. Which got me thinking about the previous summer Olympics, and the black power salute. Everyone knows what Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but I had no idea about the third guy, Aussie Peter Norman.
Kind of a sad story, which I had to look up. He didn't wear a black glove, just a human rights badge, was never picked for another Olympic team despite qualifying, got gangrene, slipped into an alcohol- and depression-filled lifestyle, and will have died a year ago on Oct 3.
Smith and Carlos were the front pall bearers at his funeral. It'll be interesting to see the story told on film, which is coming out sometime next year.

 

He said on Classic that he thought the referee waving his arm back and forth meant for him to back away, even though he knew that wasn't a rule. But he said at that point, he didn't want to risk a technical foul, FWIW.

 

The Colorado-Mizzou 5th down was ridiculous, but everyone always seems to forget that Colorado spiked the ball on what should have been fourth down with two seconds left. It's not like they tried to score four times, then got a fifth chance. Do they get in the end zone rushing to the line to get one more play off with two seconds left? Maybe not, but they certainly don't spike the ball if they know it's fourth down. Now, did they deserve a national title? Hell no. The clipping penalty in the Orange Bowl was a complete sham.

 

Tony Tarasco might have beef with that list as well.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Maradona, Hand of God vs England. Rooney red card vs Portugal.

YHS, etc

 

Creedence Clearwater Revival not getting that deserved No. 1 single.

 

Rooney's red card was questionable at worst.

Maradona's handball was a split second call in a crowd of people. The wrong no-call, but you see calls just as bad all of the time ("the hand of JOB" during the U.S./Tri Babies match in 2002 was just as bad of a no-call).

 

To me things like the the hand of god, Denkinger call, 5th Down and Tarasco HR aren't quite as bad because they were unintentional mistakes or freak occurrences.

What sets the 72 Olympics and Roy Jones bout apart is the way they clearly looked like intentional screw jobs. And I doubt its coincidence both happened in the Olympics with nationistic furor all around. BTW, another one worthy of mention is that figure skating fiasco in the 02 Olympics where the Russian mobster bribed the judge.

 

Well, the 72 Olympics LOOKED like an international screw job.

But it wasn't.

It was simply some officials overstepping their bounds. They didn't give the Russians the timeout as part of a "screw job." They did it because they believed it was within the spirit of the rules (think pine-tar incident as an example of how spirit of the rules sometimes trumps letter of the rules).

Had the pass to Belov been intercepted or knocked away, it would have been no more than a blip on the Olympic radar screen. But because the Russians were able to execute basketball's version of the Hail Mary, it becomes the untimate screw job.

And no, they would not have received unlimited chances until they scored. That is just irrational nonsense. They basically got 1 1/2 chances, the one being the final play.