Controversy
At a press conference prior to the Mike Tyson fight, Nielsen called Tyson an "abekat" which was erroneously translated as "monkey". The Tyson camp took great offense at this supposed racist slur, and Tyson himself declared, "This will make me punish him even more than I had planned." The controversy over the remark calmed down when the expression was clarified to the media by Danish linguists as having no racial connotations and simply meaning "brat" in Danish.
Controversy arose in early 2004, when journeyman heavyweight Thomas Williams stated that he had been bribed to throw his fight against Nielsen in March, 2000. Along with promoter Robert Mitchell, Williams was indicted by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada for match fixing in order to promote the career of white heavyweight hope Richie Melito, and it was during the FBI's investigation of that case that Williams admitted to intentionally losing to Nielsen. The fix was arranged by promoter Robert Mittleman, a frequent associate of Nielsen's promoter Mogens Palle, who later confessed that he had been paid $1,000, while Williams had received "up to $40,000" from Palle in order to lose the fight. Williams, Mitchell and Mittleman were all found guilty of sports bribery by the court in November and December, 2004.
The Nielsen vs. Williams fight was the 57th of Nielsen's career and was one of the fights leading to his meeting with Tyson. Both Nielsen and Mogens Palle denied any knowledge of match fixing in media statements, and the findings of the American case did not lead to criminal proceedings in Denmark, and Nielsen was not accused of any wrongdoing.
Read more about this topic: Brian Nielsen (boxer)
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