Over the years, King has repeatedly denied there was a fix, saying the suggestion was preposterous because, if Riggs had beaten her, he could have parlayed the victory into additional big money exhibitions against other top women players. He had plenty of incentive to win, she says. When told about Hal Shaw’s story, King laughs. “I would bet my life that Bobby never had that discussion with them,” she says of Marcello, Trafficante, and Ragano. “Maybe they had that discussion with themselves because they’re mobsters, but that’s not Bobby. Bobby doesn’t get involved with mobsters . . . If I really thought there was even a glimmer of possibility of that, I would think about it, but I know it’s not.”
In 1995, during the last year of his life, Riggs was 77 years old and suffering from prostate cancer. And reporters were still asking him about a fix. “I know there was a rumor about that match,” he told tennis writer Steve Flink. “People said I was tanking, but Billie Jean beat me fair and square. I tried as hard as I could, but I made the classic mistake of overestimating myself and underestimating Billie Jean King. I didn’t really think she had a chance . . . Even though we had put up a million dollars in escrow for her to play the rematch, she just wouldn’t do it.”
The day before Riggs died in October 1995, King called him at home. Over the years, the two adversaries had become good friends.
“I love you,” King told him.
“I love you,” Riggs said.
Then Billie Jean King told the happy hustler how important their match’s result will always be to all women.
“Well, we did it,” Bobby Riggs finally told her. “We really made a difference, didn’t we?”
MARY PILON
Tomato Can Blues
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
GLADWIN, MICHIGAN—Scott DiPonio raced to make sure everything was in order—the fighters were ready, the ring girls were on time, and the Bud Light was cold.
DiPonio was a local promoter who organized amateur cage fights that looked more like barroom brawls than glitzy Las Vegas bouts. With a mix of grit, sweat, and blood, the fights had caught on in rural Michigan, and DiPonio’s February 2 event, called Caged Aggression, drew hundreds of fans, even with cage-side seats going for $35.
Charlie Rowan, an undistinguished heavyweight, was scheduled to fight that night at Streeters, a dank nightclub that hosted cage fights in Traverse City.
Rowan’s cage name was Freight Train, but he was more like a caboose—plodding and slow, a bruiser whose job was to fill out the ring and get knocked down.
He was what the boxing world used to call a tomato can. The term’s origins are unclear, but perhaps it’s as simple as this: knock a tomato can over, and red stuff spills out.
Rowan certainly wasn’t in it for the money. He was an amateur who loved fighting so much he did it for free.
An hour before the Caged Aggression fights began, DiPonio’s cell phone rang. It was Rowan’s girlfriend, so frantic she could hardly get the words out, DiPonio said. He asked her to take a deep breath, and, on the verge of tears, she told him that Rowan had crashed his car. He was being airlifted to a hospital. It didn’t look good.
Two days later, DiPonio said, she called back. Rowan, only 25 years old, was dead.
DiPonio drove for two hours from Traverse City to Gladwin for a makeshift memorial at the home of Rowan’s girlfriend. Rowan’s mother sat in the living room, quietly weeping.
DiPonio and other promoters planned a string of benefits for the Rowan family, including one called the Fight for Charlie. The fighters were enemies in the cage, but they pulled together to help one of their own. A heavyweight who had once knocked out Rowan in less than 90 seconds agreed to work as a judge at the largest benefit.
The Fight for Charlie took place March 9. Ring girls sold raffle tickets to a crowd of about 1,000. A young fighter declared from the cage that he was dedicating his bout to Rowan’s memory.
“Thank you for helping us raise money for Charlie Rowan’s family,” a promoter wrote on Facebook after one of the benefits. “Thank you for letting it all out in the cage for us.” He added that Rowan was “there with us in spirit and would have been very proud of all of you!”
Less than two weeks later, a Gladwin gun store was robbed.
When Scott DiPonio, the fight promoter, saw the suspect’s mug shot on the next day’s news, his stomach dropped. It was the late Charlie Rowan, back from the dead.
A Blood-Soaked Allure
Mixed martial arts was born as a seedy sport on the fringes of society. The matches were short, loud, and brutal, fights for those who found boxing too tame. Over the years, it’s grown into a mainstream spectacle that now draws millions of viewers on television.