Is this guy a real person? He has his own wikipedia page. He has a record of 0-32, one NC and in all his fights he has lost in the first or second round. According to boxrec, he faced Angel Manfredy. There seems to be no video of him available. I don't recall any fighter nor trainer ever talking about him in an interview. I have no idea if the picture of him in Wikipedia is real or not. So, does anybody know any specifics about the guy? Does he even exist, or is he the 'Allen Smithee' of boxing, a name for the opponents whose identity hasn't been known or a name in the fights that were actually never fought?
Even though the thought of an Allen Smithee character might sound far fetched, I know for a fact that such thing has happened. In here, there was a small professional boxing card once in the 90s. The local novice was supposed to face an Estonian guy. Just before the event the opponent canceled. The promoter didn't want to cancel the whole event cos it would have cost him money, but there was no chance of finding a new opponent either. So, what they did was, a trainer from another town, who was unknown for the public, came up. They introduced him as this Estonian guy in the ring, he fought the local kid and the kid got his W. It still stands in his boxrec record as a legitimate win, against an opponent he never faced
A pseudonym they were able to recycle for multiple people. Maybe Eric Crumble is a real person who was also a boxer, but it's not one individual who went 0-32.
The record itself isn't impossible. I have personally seen a guy who went 2-39, was KOed 30 times and actually apologized a promoter for winning, even though he wasn'tpaid to lose. I also saw a guy who was 0-15 (12 KObys) However the amount of fights and the fact that there is no video available is iffy
Exactly. I realize "he" wasn't fighting at the Mandalay Bay on De La Hoya or Mayweather undercards but 39 fights in 90's and 00's and zero footage? The name itself of course also reeks of an inside joke.
Did you make this video? I admit, I initially scoffed at your theory, until I looked up his box(w)rec(k) page and saw the vast disparity in his weights from one fight to the next. I certainly don't buy that he weighed 152 for a fight in May '97 and then only 131 a month later. At the very least, it looks like there was more than one fighter using the same name (one a LW, the other a MW). Yeah, something's very fishy here.
Is it against the rules to link to another boxing forum? There's a 5-page discussion of the Crumble question on this site, but I haven't had a chance to go through the posts yet: Chasing Eric Crumble - Who's The Man Behind The Legend?
More discussion in this thread. One post claims that he trained out of a gym that was notorious for providing losing fighters to up-and-coming opponents. Has anyone ever seen Eric 'Roy Jones Chin' Crumble fight?
Thanks! I skimmed through the thread. They seemed to have really good ideas how to inspect the matter but they didn't seem to find any solid proof one way or another
The massive fluctuations in weight are the most compelling piece of evidence IMO. Here's a few highlights (according to boxrec): 1990-06-22 -151 lbs. 1993-09-03 -136 1994-07-25 -153 1996-11-29 -159 1997-02-19 -142 1997-05-06 -152 1997-06-27 -131 1998-03-26 -152 1999-10-29 -168 1999-12-14 -155
Boxing historian Monte Cox, who years ago posted articles to this site, has apparently been a judge in Crumble's fight. If someone knows how to contact him, he might remember something (must have been pretty easy evening for a judge)
