BoxRec

Very interesting article -- I haven't read anything lately about Mitchell.

Most fans know the fighters with good looking records coming out of the American mid-west are pretty suspect, but you have to hand it to promoter Bobby Mitchell for taking it to such an extreme.

For those who haven't read it, Mitchell and his partner were in the business of building up stumble bum heavyweights in the mid west with a view to getting them a nice looking undefeated record.
In order to do this, Mitchell's partner, an ex not-so-good fighter, would step into the ring under an assumed name, and lose to the same undefeated heavyweight, sometimes 4 or 5 times to the same fighter - but with a different name each time.

So before long, they have a heavyweight who can't actually fight, but with a nice shining record of 24-0.

Then you call Don King ( or the Germans of late it seems ) and your pug gets a big payday against a fighter like Mike Tyson, or some other hot shot ( the TV networks like nice looking undefeated records of course ) and lose by KO1.

Case in point - Richie "The Bull" Melito - record below:

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=9039

Can't be sure, but I'd guess the 0-1 guys Duran beat on the way up are more down to incomplete records out of Panama. I doubt Duran needed too much protection on his way up.

Steele was another bum managed by Mitchell.

You get these severely padded type records in the higher divisions it seems: where the money is.

Take a look at some of the heros our new "champ" Shannon Briggs has been knocking over lately.

And German heavy hope Alexander Dimitrenko has had some pretty creative matchmaking as well.

I know Frank Bruno came in for alot of critisism when he started out because of the calibre of his opponents, but actually compared to how heavys nowadays are built up they weren't that bad.

I think pre-arranged Boxing matches are vary, very rare. As it has already been stated there are plenty of low quaility Boxers who can be relied upon to fall over when the heat is turned up, due to their lack of physical durability or desire to win.

Of course there has been many a rumour of 'half-arranged' fights were one fighter has been asked to 'wear the cuffs' with the other fighter being unaware that he was helped to win. One of the most talked about fights accussed of this was Norton vs Young. I for one don't believe this in this case as if it was true then Jimmy Young did a really bad job as he very nearly won that fight, many fans and writers thought he had.

One think I am certain of though is that many a prospect has had his record padded with fighters with 'made up' records or fighters who fight under various names. This has happened to many a high profile fighter such as Sean O'Grady, James Buster Douglas and towards the end of his career Robbie Simms.

MightyWarrior wrote:Can't be sure, but I'd guess the 0-1 guys Duran beat on the way up are more down to incomplete records out of Panama. I doubt Duran needed too much protection on his way up.

Steele was another bum managed by Mitchell.

You get these severely padded type records in the higher divisions it seems: where the money is.

Take a look at some of the heros our new "champ" Shannon Briggs has been knocking over lately.

And German heavy hope Alexander Dimitrenko has had some pretty creative matchmaking as well.

Spot on, Dimitrenko has been fighting shit, that Argie he fought last time round was dire.

MightyWarrior wrote:Most fans know the fighters with good looking records coming out of the American mid-west are pretty suspect, but you have to hand it to promoter Bobby Mitchell for taking it to such an extreme.

For Mitchell, it's the south-east (which honestly is worse than the mid-west).

Nasty taste in the mouth -stuff this.

But as KoJoe, Terence & Mighty Warrior were saying, even as a kid I it's watched the ultra-predictable stuff that stars engaged in, & thought "Hang on, what's going on here then?" Just one of those things you had to learn, one wrinkle of the game... Chavez & Toney's early/mid-90s non-title fights dug up some bodies.

But in a way I think those type of non-title fights were cool. Big fighters fought more than once a year, in smaller venues, & stayed sharp. Made it seem like they had exposure.

By the by, that "wrinkle of the game" schtick I was talking about earlier: I think the practice of understanding the ethos of non-title/tuneup bouts has been replaced by the "wrinkle" of learning the political maneouvrings of the game... Something far less interesting, to me at least...

topper123 wrote:www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/sports/15991967.htm

you didnt just find out about this, did you?!?

this was major news in the usa even before mitchell got convicted and THAT happened 2 years ago last week!! it was big news when the story first broke which was about 4 years ago!! this is actually YESTERDAY'S NEWS...

good for gross for doing the right thing...it caused a major shakeup & i guarantee you has made it a lot less likely for fights to still be fixed these days...PRISON IS STILL THE BEST DETERRENT!!