In the last few days as the new movie "Battle of the Sexes" was about to be released, it was suggested that Bobby Riggs threw his game against Billy Jean King because he owed money to mobsters due to his gambling. Now, after seeing this movie, I am more interested to figure out how a 55 year old Riggs beat the #1 woman in the world, Margaret Court, 6-2 6-1 before he lost to Billy Jean, just a short time after Court beat Billy Jean King almost as easily. Many things don't make sense here, but perhaps Riggs paid off Court to lose to him easily, by promising her a piece of his winnings when he pulled off the Billy Jean King match. As the great promoter that Riggs was, he knew that he needed to have the tennis watching audience get interested first by beating the #1 woman player and then create all the hype and ridiculousness necessary to pull off one of the greatest spectacles in American History.
It is very clear that Bobby Riggs never meant any of the stupid male chauvinist things he said, he was just trying to generate huge interest to make the event become the big money maker it was, and ultimately it all worked. I would have liked to have learned more about the back story to this almost documentary like film about this famous match that happened in 1973 and even how much both Riggs and King were paid, but this was unfortunately never mentioned. The acting of Steve Carrel who played Riggs and Emma Stone who played King was very good, the story was slow at times but in the end the screenwriter and director did an effective job of remembering all that happened in the battle of the sexes, 44 years ago, so I do recommend this movie.
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