http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/9589625/the-match-maker

Looks like they fixed the battle of the sexes tennis match.

I thought ESPN did a great job with that... they said Riggs was a degenerate gambler and would bet on anything and owed the mob over $100k so the had him throw the match with BJK since he was a 2 to 1 favorite and virtually no expect thought he would lose.

They said he had tons of unforced errors and missed many easy shots. But he, Riggs, did pass a lie detector test some years later with flying colors so who knows.

I find it to be a credible story, of course the politically correct police won't like to accept the fact that perhaps a big victory for woman was actually orchestrated by criminals perhaps. ESPN is a very progressive esque channel now, heavily reporting on breakthroughs in gay's and women in sports, so for them to come out with this I would give this story a lot of weight, but than again this is like Kennedy minus 1000 so who really knows.

I compare it to the liston clay fight rematch when liston got "ko'd" by cassius clak aka ali. the mob owned a big pct. of sonny liston , guys like Frankie carbo and blinkie Palermo. fixed fights were right up their alley. so a fixed tennis match is just another betting prop where money can be made especially if you can control the favorite.

Sure the match may have been fixed. But did Trafficante Marcello and Ragano meet about it in late 1972, early 1973 at the Palma Ceia? Doubtful.

Ragano never mentioned it in his book , never mentioned it to Selwyn Raab or Nick Pileggi and his son denies it. Ragano spilled the beans on everything else, why not this, especially back then when it was more relevant?

And Trafficante spent most of 1972-1974 out of the country. Example below. Marcello certainly came to Tampa to meet with Trafficante and vise versa, but I would think a visit in 1972 would come up somewhere on a surveillance report.

It's not impossible , just unlikely.

When the match took place, Trafficante was in Italy.

the best way to really know would be to track the betting action. in vegas they can take a proposition "off" or closed. i'm sure the sports books in vegas took a lot of action on that match and it would be nice to know if any "smart money' or wise guy bets were made. that is large bets made on billie jean king to win. if riggs was into bookies for a large amount of money the fix has to be considered. who did he bet with and who his manager was, things like that have to be fleshed out. of course it's easier said than done.

Dam so what happened with his house bn broke in to? Did they find out who