A former boxer was offered $5,000 by members of promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank company to throw a fight in 1995, the New York Daily News reported.
Mitchell Rose told the paper that two Top Rank employees came to his Brooklyn home a few weeks before his Dec. 15, 1995, fight against Eric “Butterbean” Esch and said they’d give him $5,000 to lose the bout.
Rose, now 34 and retired, was 1-6-1 at the time and said he declined the offer. He sent Butterbean to his first pro loss, stopping him in the second round at Madison Square Garden.
Rose’s allegations come after FBI agents seized computers and financial records from the Las Vegas offices of Top Rank last Tuesday. Published reports linked the seizures to allegations that September’s Oscar de La Hoya-Shane Mosley fight was fixed.
