Actor Mickey Rourke returned to the boxing ring on Friday at age 62 and notched his first victory since the 1990s. Rourke defeated 29-year-old Elliot Seymour by knocking him down several times, leading to the referee calling the fight. But was it fixed?
Prior to his exhibition against Rourke, Seymour had a professional boxing record of 1-9. According to the Daily Mail, he had been living homeless in California and spending most of his time at a local Starbucks.
A source close to Seymour’s family reportedly told the Daily Mail that Elliot trains at the same Hollywood gym as Rourke and was paid to take a dive.
“There are people at Wild Card gym who know that Elliot’s in a really terrible situation and pretty much living on the streets, these are Mickey Rourke’s people who Elliot’s been around and known for some time,” the source said. “…I think it was just an ideal situation where Elliot has a title, he’s desperate and clearly his boxing career isn’t going anywhere and he’s pretty much living on the streets, so for him it’s a win because gets off the streets for a while.
“One of the well-known boxing reporters writing about the fight said they might as well have got somebody who was sleeping on the subway and it would’ve been a better opponent, well what he doesn’t know is that’s pretty much what happened.”
The family source said he spoke out because Seymour’s family is worried Elliot has mental health problems. The Daily Mail claims to have been shown text messages that were sent from a friend who helped Seymour arrange his travel to Russia to their source.
“They told him to throw the fight I hope he gets home safely and paid,” the message said. “They wanted him down in the 4th.”
Seymour went down in the second after taking a body shot that didn’t appear to be all that vicious. If he did throw the fight to make money, I hope his life improves as a result.
You can watch a video of the fight here.
H/T Bloody Elbow
