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First of all, Burstein noted that the sports-book odds tumbled from 11-1 to 7-2 in the days before the fight. He claims that it "is virtually unheard of for them to change so dramatically in such a short period of time."
Well, it's NOT unheard of, for openers. What it more probably means is that there was very little action on the fight up until the weekend, and that when there was, most of the money that came in was on Brewster.
This seems entirely reasonable. Think about it: Given his history, would YOU have bet $110 on Klitschko to win $10?
Burstein also made much of the case of the vanishing credential. Supposedly somebody scammed his way into the fight by picking up a credential reserved for an unnamed member of the Klitschko posse. Despite promoters' elaborate precautions, we can assure you that this is not unheard of, either. Since whoever was in possession of the FAUX credential was never spotted, we can probably assume that either somebody miscounted on the initial allotment, or the interloper, if indeed there was one, just found a seat and watched the fight. There is no evidence that any unauthorized person ever got near the Klitschko corner, but Burstein's letter to the US Attorney leaps, incredibly, in a single paragraph, from this allegation to Robert Mittleman to Arnold Rothstein and the 1919 Black Sox.
Even more preposterously, Burstein attempts to use as "evidence" a comment made by an employee of the Palms sports book to the Las Vegas Sun's Deane Juipe that the Vitali Klitschko-Corrie Sanders fight two weeks later had been taken off the board "because the other Klitschko [Wladimir] looked like he was poisoned or something in the fight with Brewster." (Emphasis supplied by Burstein.)
Of course, when this decidedly unscientific view was elicited (on April 19), the Klitschkos had been howling to anyone who would listen about Wladimir having been "poisoned" for eight days already.
Could it be, rather, that the ******** industry came to the same wary conclusion much of the boxing world did? To wit: If you've seen one Klitschko, you've seen them all.
The notion that Wladimir was defeated by foul play and not by his own inadequacies would neatly fit into the agenda of at least one major player on the boxing scene. A few days before the Brewster-Wladimir Klitschko fight an HBO insider said to boxing author and attorney Thomas Hauser "how can we go wrong with four Klitschko title fights a year?"
And in its report on the OTHER Klitschko's Los Angeles fight two weeks later, Sports Illustrated's Richard Hoffer somewhat preposterously claimed that "Vitali is the sole bona fide heavyweight champion."
Would we risk stooping to a Judd Burstein-level low here to point out the authors of those two statements draw their paychecks from the same company?
And on the basis of exactly WHAT does Vitali rate as "the sole and bona fide heavyweight champion? Beating an out of shape, 38 year-old Corrie Sanders? In point of fact, Vitali had more trouble with Sanders than Hasim Rahman and Nate Tubbs did in Corrie's two previous defeats. Would Sanders have been the "sole and bona fide champion" if HE'd won? Or would Judd be demanding another investigation?
Even if one accepts the proposition that Lewis was the legitimate heir to the mantle of John L. Sullivan, Joe Lewis, and Muhammad Ali, as far as we can see the retired champion and SI's "sole and bona fide" one have at this point just one thing in common. Their lawyer.
Well, it's NOT unheard of, for openers. What it more probably means is that there was very little action on the fight up until the weekend, and that when there was, most of the money that came in was on Brewster.
This seems entirely reasonable. Think about it: Given his history, would YOU have bet $110 on Klitschko to win $10?
Burstein also made much of the case of the vanishing credential. Supposedly somebody scammed his way into the fight by picking up a credential reserved for an unnamed member of the Klitschko posse. Despite promoters' elaborate precautions, we can assure you that this is not unheard of, either. Since whoever was in possession of the FAUX credential was never spotted, we can probably assume that either somebody miscounted on the initial allotment, or the interloper, if indeed there was one, just found a seat and watched the fight. There is no evidence that any unauthorized person ever got near the Klitschko corner, but Burstein's letter to the US Attorney leaps, incredibly, in a single paragraph, from this allegation to Robert Mittleman to Arnold Rothstein and the 1919 Black Sox.
Even more preposterously, Burstein attempts to use as "evidence" a comment made by an employee of the Palms sports book to the Las Vegas Sun's Deane Juipe that the Vitali Klitschko-Corrie Sanders fight two weeks later had been taken off the board "because the other Klitschko [Wladimir] looked like he was poisoned or something in the fight with Brewster." (Emphasis supplied by Burstein.)
Of course, when this decidedly unscientific view was elicited (on April 19), the Klitschkos had been howling to anyone who would listen about Wladimir having been "poisoned" for eight days already.
Could it be, rather, that the ******** industry came to the same wary conclusion much of the boxing world did? To wit: If you've seen one Klitschko, you've seen them all.
The notion that Wladimir was defeated by foul play and not by his own inadequacies would neatly fit into the agenda of at least one major player on the boxing scene. A few days before the Brewster-Wladimir Klitschko fight an HBO insider said to boxing author and attorney Thomas Hauser "how can we go wrong with four Klitschko title fights a year?"
And in its report on the OTHER Klitschko's Los Angeles fight two weeks later, Sports Illustrated's Richard Hoffer somewhat preposterously claimed that "Vitali is the sole bona fide heavyweight champion."
Would we risk stooping to a Judd Burstein-level low here to point out the authors of those two statements draw their paychecks from the same company?
And on the basis of exactly WHAT does Vitali rate as "the sole and bona fide heavyweight champion? Beating an out of shape, 38 year-old Corrie Sanders? In point of fact, Vitali had more trouble with Sanders than Hasim Rahman and Nate Tubbs did in Corrie's two previous defeats. Would Sanders have been the "sole and bona fide champion" if HE'd won? Or would Judd be demanding another investigation?
Even if one accepts the proposition that Lewis was the legitimate heir to the mantle of John L. Sullivan, Joe Lewis, and Muhammad Ali, as far as we can see the retired champion and SI's "sole and bona fide" one have at this point just one thing in common. Their lawyer.
So he tried you to huh? 
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