Sport and hustles have a long relationship. A good tennis or golf hustler works on the ego of an opponent, challenging him to put his money where his mouth is. After lulling him into a false sense of superiority, he then takes him to the cleaners. Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Hustlerwhere he exaggerates his drunkenness, plays down his skill and gets the better of challengers at the pool table.
Bobby Riggs was a legendary hustler (he called his autobiography Court Hustler). In 1939, after he won two titles at Wimbledon, the singles and the doubles, he bet on a triple and cleared 100,000 dollars after winning the mixed doubles with Alice Marble.
In 1973, aged 55, he challenged Margaret Court, the top women’s player, to a match that garnered enormous publicity after he made disparaging remarks about the women’s game. He won in straight sets against an opponent 25 years younger. Billie Jean King, who had initially declined to play Riggs, now decided to — it was billed the Battle of the Sexes — and beat him in straight sets for the winner-take-all 100,000 dollars.
Before the advent of social media and the arrival of ‘influencers’ who perform culturally vital jobs, gimmicks like these were seen as a bit of a giggle, no more.
After the Netflix-sponsored ‘fight’ between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, we wonder if that is a route sport might take more regularly. The money is huge (the boxers were expected to make around 100 million, the amount Floyd Mayweather is said to have received for ‘fighting’ a star of mixed martial arts, Conor McGregor), for one. Public interest is high, and advertisers come into homes riding on the novelty. As always, hype is its own hype.
But is it sport? Of course not. If anything, it is an insult to sport, and in the ideal world, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation would not have sanctioned the fight. But they wanted a bite of the pie, too.
Those arguing for the purity of sport and the way former stars push it into disrepute stand no chance of influencing anything. The real influencer here, Jake, has 32 million (by one estimate) followers on social media and an audience of 7.6 billion (yes, billion!) on his YouTube channel. You can’t argue with those figures, especially when these are converted into dollars.
Gimmicks are not unusual in sport, and every time one is announced, someone always recalls P. T. Barnum’s line about a sucker being born every minute. Muhammad Ali ‘fought’ Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki back in 1976.
Ali threw six punches in all; the ‘fight’ was declared a draw, and both men walked away with honour intact and income enhanced by six million dollars.
After Tyson, then 39, lost his last professional fight to Kevin McBride, he said, “I do not have the guts to be in this sport anymore. I don’t want to disrespect the sport that I love.” Ah well!
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