challenge of champions...

Have watched this video dozens of times and it still makes me sick. I remember when it happened in 1991 and it remains a serious blemish on our sport's history which has been analyzed many times on this forum. In one thread on this incident, I posted:

sjm said:
Some historical perspective may be important here. The Mirage, the host hotel of the event, was quite new and wanted to be "the new Caesars Palace," and one aspect in which this had to happen was in hosting sporting events. Another was sports betting.

In 1990, James Buster Douglas, to the amazement of all, knocked out Mike Tyson to win the heavyweight championship. The Mirage's first big roll of the dice was to purchase the rights to Douglas' next two fights. Pool was another beneficiary of the spending binge of The Mirage, as the Challenge of Champions was to be staged at the then state-of-the-art hotel. The Mirage made the event bettable in its own sports book, making the event more visible to its customers.

The dump, however, cost pool its shot to be on the permanent slate at a thriving new hotel in Vegas and to become one of the bettable events at one of the nation's most prominent sports books.

The image of pool and of those who play it professionally took a big hit that day and when a giant of the sports betting industry took a financial hit, the word got out pretty quickly.

In the world of finance, what happened at the 1991 Challenge of Champions is called insider trading, and those who willfully participated in the dump disgraced the game.
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sjm said:
Have watched this video dozens of times and it still makes me sick. I remember when it happened in 1991 and it remains a serious blemish on our sport's history which has been analyzed many times on this forum. In one thread on this incident, I posted:
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One of many black eyes in our sport. Not the only one, but certainly the most shameful and damaging. It's been decades and still pool hasn't overcome the criminal and deplorable actions of those involved.
 
Buddy Hall

Nice to see the Co-Captain of this years Mosconi Cup Team in action!

Wedge
 
There was no Challenge of Champions this year, correct? It was going on for over 20 consecutive years
 
what was so bad about that match,they were both gentlemen and didnt break anything ,when you know they wanted to, hey for $50 K straight in gets to looking tough i am sure, that was a big prize fund for them at that time, they didnt do anything embarrassing in my opinion, nothing that Golfers,bowlers,Tennis players, havent done when playing for big cash
 
Lucky_Lew66 said:
what was so bad about that match,they were both gentlemen and didnt break anything ,when you know they wanted to, hey for $50 K straight in gets to looking tough i am sure, that was a big prize fund for them at that time, they didnt do anything embarrassing in my opinion, nothing that Golfers,bowlers,Tennis players, havent done when playing for big cash
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To my knowledge, this is the first defense ever offered for the participants in the twenty two years since it happened, and I expect it will the last.

The players, themselves, were caught having made sidebets on Mike LeBron and the Mirage, reportedly, refused to pay on some of them, and no Las Vegas casino has ever made pool a bettable event again in their sports book. Those who participated in this dump disgraced our sport. Whether disgracing one's sport is embarrassing or not is possibly debatable, but the lack of integrity here is not.

Jay Helfert, tournament referee at that event has posted about how, even though he could see the dump in front of his very eyes, the rules did not give him the power to do anything about it.
 
NYC cue dude said:
One of many black eyes in our sport. Not the only one, but certainly the most shameful and damaging. It's been decades and still pool hasn't overcome the criminal and deplorable actions of those involved.
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Damaging doesn't begin to cover it NYC.... But you know that. Shenannigans is a polite way of saying it.

westcoast said:
There was no Challenge of Champions this year, correct? It was going on for over 20 consecutive years
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The C of C, as with countless other events, appears to have gone the way of the do do. I wonder why it was no longer a viable business venture. :rolleyes:
 
westcoast said:
There was no Challenge of Champions this year, correct? It was going on for over 20 consecutive years
Click to expand...

There was, but only for the ladies. The event occurred a few weeks ago during Mosconi Cup week at the Springfield Convention Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. The winner was Kelly Fisher.
 
well no wonder Earl was so-oooo P1SSED!
wow - and yáll men just overlook me, cause i just put 2+2 together, ok? i didn't know....i sensed it....and now all pieces have fallen into place.

FULL-CIRCLE


.
 
Sad part is, they aren't the only ones that have done it in big tournaments. It still goes on today.:frown:
 
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