ESPN: Battle of the Sexes was a mob fix

I'm leaning toward there being a lot of truth to the whole story, but there really isn't much of a way we'll ever know for sure.

 

That's where I come down on it too. It's entirely possible but unprovable at this point.

 

If you don't know the hype that surrounded this, then you are extremely young. It was a huge deal. I was young when it took place, but I still remember people talking about it years later.

I could easily see Riggs throwing it for a gambling debt. I always figured he just got his ass kicked by not taking it seriously. It was pretty much a carnival sideshow from the start.

 

I'm in my 30s, but the match was played before I was born. I've seen the clip of match point 100 times I'm sure and had seen footage of Riggs hamming it up like a WWE heel, but I really didn't know anything about him other than he won Wimbledon in the 1930s. That alone made him seem ancient to me and made the event just kinda "meh" in my mind. Now that I'm a little older and think about it being similar to somebody like Serena Williams playing Borg, I can see why people were so intrigued.

But chronic gambler, hanging around with mobsters, huge reversal in the quality of his play? It all raises a lot of red flags.

 

Yeah, and I can see why King and other women's sports activists/enthusiasts would want to believe it wasn't true. Christine Brennan has probably fired off a half-dozen angry emails to Van Natta already.

 

Yeah, I find it incredibly interesting and want to know the truth, but at the same time I feel bad for King. Even if she's saying there's no way the fix was in, it has to eat at her at least a little.

 

Mile, what's new is that someone claims to have actually seen and heard Riggs talking to mobsters and setting it up, first-hand.

The suspicion of a fix has been around. An eyewitness to the act is news.

 

The story acknowledges there has been rumors for years, especially in certain circles, but I think a lot of people in my generation have always had the "Battle of the Sexes" presented to them as a wonderful victory for equality without any hint it might not have been on the up and up.

 

40 years after the fact. And eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. This doesn't pass the smell test to me.

The fix rumors have always been out there and, sure, there may be a little fire to go along with the smoke.

But I want to see some evidence that's a little more substantial (and contemporary) than an old man's memory 40 years later.

 

Watching the highlights from the match, most of which I hadn't seen, I was stunned by the number of no-chance-in-hell unforced errors Riggs had. He lost a lot of points on shots that looked like maybe it was his fifth time ever playing.

Doesn't make him guilty, but if you asked me to watch the match and assess whether or not he tanked, I think my vote would be yes.

 

Haven't read the story yet, but FWIW, I remember a couple of times over the years I was watching TV with my dad when we happened to see highlights of that match, and both times my dad said, "I'm absolutely sure he threw that match." He didn't have any inside information or anything -- he just came to that conclusion from watching the match.

I was only 5 when it happened, not really cognizant of sports or current events at the time, but I always see that match point and him jumping over the net to greet King. He sure didn't seem too broken up over losing.