Sports

Sports Fans Share Emotional Reactions To Star Athletes’ Criminal Behavior

Darren - April 23, 2021

Sports

Sports Fans Share Emotional Reactions To Star Athletes’ Criminal Behavior

Darren - April 23, 2021

12. Greg Hardy

A former defensive end for the Carolina Panthers and the Dallas Cowboys, Hardy now competes in the UFC heavyweight division. However, he’s a very controversial character because of a criminal conviction after a court convicted him for battering his girlfriend. Hardy appealed his conviction and the alleged victim failed to show up to testify, resulting in the judge throwing the case out of court. After this, Hardy became a pariah.

MillardFillmore revealed his perspective on Reddit. He wrote: “If martial arts helps him get his aggression out against men of his size rather than a small woman then I’m all for him getting a shot. He’s instantly a top 5 athlete to ever go into MMA. That said, I hope he gets his f***ing head smashed in.” Many MMA fans share the same perspective and also look forward to the day the promotion cuts him.

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11. Travis Rudolph

Rudolph entered the NFL Draft in 2017 as one of the best college receivers in the nation but still went undrafted. Most people expected him to enjoy a stellar career but the reality is that he didn’t meet his potential with the New York Giants. After two seasons his NFL career ended. Then, in 2021, police arrested him after he unloaded a firearm on a vehicle carrying four passengers.

“I remember the feel-good story of how he sat with a lonely autistic kid at lunch when he was at FSU. Kind of a hard detour from that,” CenturionElite wrote on Reddit about the tragic incident. Rudolph received multiple criminal charges including one count of first-degree murder after one of the victims died. It’s the type of tragedy that is unfathomable in the eyes of most people.

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10. Kobe Bryant

One of the greatest NBA stars ever, Bryant’s name is destined to go down in folklore following his tragic death in 2020. However, the Black Mamba wasn’t a squeaky-clean individual because he faced a major criminal investigation as a younger man. In 2003, the Eagle Sherrif’s office in Colorado arrested him on charges related to the alleged rape of a woman.

After a messy public outcry, Bryant admitted that he had sexual relations with the woman but denied assault charges. In the end, he settled out of court in a civil suit. “I am amazed at the PR work Kobe and his team did to make that situation a complete afterthought for the public,” TimRigginsPanther observed. This is a fair point because it’s impossible to imagine the same thing happening today.

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9. Patrick Kane

It’s common to tell a taxi driver to keep the change following a ride. However, Kane didn’t get the memo and became upset when a driver failed to return the change to him on a night out in Chicago. Despite being a multimillionaire NHL star with the Chicago Blackhawks, he reacted furiously and assaulted the driver.

caprincrash couldn’t believe how cheap the NHL star was. He wrote on Reddit: “What the f**k? They were upset over $1.20, wow they must be very different drunks than me, I stop caring about money altogether when I’m drunk. Hell I gave the girl at pita pit $20 once just cause she gave me my pita.” However, Kane was clearly all about the principle of the situation rather than the money.

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8. Mike Perry

Perry is the most Florida man on the planet. ‘Platinum’ maintains a level of popularity because of his outrageous personality and brawling style of fighting. But in 2019 and 2020 his behavior began to deteriorate. His ex-girlfriend accused him of physical abuse. However, this wasn’t the end of the drama. While on vacation in Texas, he became embroiled in a verbal disagreement with an older gentleman in a restaurant.

In the end, he punched the man unconscious, disgraceful behavior. He was an older man and second, Perry was a trained professional. To sum up, this criminal behavior attracted a lot of fury online and in the media. @mason458 tweeted, “That guy needs cutting from the UFC. He’s never gonna be a title challenger. He needs to be committed to a psych ward and get help.”

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7. Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones

“The real question was this one for shooting up a strip club again? Or is this a boring one?”chandelizards after news broke of yet another ‘Pacman’ arrest. The former Cincinnati Bengals star has more criminal convictions than most of the rest of the league put together. He simply can’t avoid trouble, but some incidents are definitely worse than others. These include assaults, strip-club shooting allegations, and DUIs.

“Fact remains; if there’s anyone that knows how to party on a Wednesday, it’s Pacman Jones,” justthetip3 joked. These arrests just keep coming. In 2021, law enforcement arrested him on a charge of assault after an incident in Ohio. Of course, nothing will be more dramatic than the time he slammed a stripper’s head into the stage after making it rain with one-dollar bills.

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6. Floyd Mayweather

“It is funny how in six days he accustomed himself to jail, bribing out prisoners with murder charges and having a room with six pillows and a lot of sheets. Mayweather is extraordinarily resilient but also an odd individual,” JohKhur noted after the legendary boxer’s time in jail in 2011. He spent 60 days in a cell after he battered his ex-girlfriend and received a criminal conviction.

“You know how women are sometimes,” Mayweather told assembled media before his fight with Manny Pacquaio in 2015. Furthermore, Mayweather’s opinion of women received fresh scrutiny when he opened a strip club in Las Vegas called Girl Collection. There is no doubt that many fans dislike the boxer because of his treatment of women and those closest to him.

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5. War Machine

War Machine started life as Jonathan Koppenhaver before he legally changed his name to the former. The MMA fighter fought for promotions that included the UFC and Bellator. In the end, he became notorious after almost murdering his former girlfriend Christy Mack. As well as battering and slicing her with a knife, he also raped her. A court sentenced him to life in prison for the heinous act.

“Seriously, looking at photos of her after this happened is absolutely heartbreaking,” perfumebunny007 wrote. “How somebody could ever harm their significant other like this is astounding. It sounds like she’s on a better life path now though. The emotional scarring has got to still be horrific though.” As one of the most well-known porn stars on the planet, Mack’s suffering attracted a lot of media attention.

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4. Adam Johnson

Johnson burst onto the scene as a fresh-faced winger. His exciting and dynamic performances convinced Manchester City to sign him before finally moving back to his hometown Premier League club, Sunderland. The England international stunned the soccer world after a criminal conviction in 2015. Police arrested him after he groomed a 15-year-old girl and he duly went to prison.

Finally, in 2019, he left prison after serving half of his sentence. @PaulChocky never expected to hear about him again because of his dark past. “Players have come back from robbery, drink driving, tax evasion and even assault to play professional football (soccer) again,” he tweeted. “But this was sexual assault of a minor, there’s no coming back from that. This guy will never kick a ball in anger again!”

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3. Michael Vick

Vick singlehandedly changed the quarterback position during his time with the Atlanta Falcons. However, he never became the transcendent superstar that he could have been. This was because of his outrageous criminal behavior behind the scenes. It emerged that Vick was the ringleader of a dog-fighting ring. He did time for this atrocious action and lost many of his former fans. Of course, Vick returned to the NFL after his release but it was a dark period.

nohipstersallowed noted: “If Vick wasn’t arrested and convicted I think it’s pretty safe to say he would still be torturing dogs. I’m not saying people shouldn’t root for him, but I also don’t think people out there realize that prison isn’t often the cure for sociopaths. He certainly has seemed to turn his life around and deserves credit for that, but I would never cheer for someone who has derived pleasure from torturing another living creature.”

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2. Oscar Pistorius

Tiger Wood, Lance Armstrong, and now Oscar Pistorius, Nike should really just tell the athletes and change the motto to “Don’t do it,” 10steps noted after the latter’s arrest in 2013. Before this, Pistorious was a rare package. He transcended the achievements of most Paralympic athletes after he medalled in ablebodied track racing. But it all came crashing down when he murdered his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

This was one of the most high-profile murder trials of the decade. The South African court initially rejected the murder conviction and Pistorious was even out on house arrest at one point. However, a retrial found him guilty of murder and he went to prison for 13 years. It was a dramatic and traumatic sequence of events but one that will never be forgotten because of Pistorious’s fame.

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1. Aaron Hernandez

There was a time when Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski were the top tight end duo in the NFL. Sadly, Hernandez has one of the darkest criminal convictions on this list after he murdered Odin Lloyd. Furthermore, investigations link him to several other homicides. In the end, Hernandez, a closet bisexual and abuse sufferer, killed himself in prison.

“There’s actually a lot that’s come out about his childhood and some repressed issues he had. I’m not excusing what he did but he had a really f***ed up life. And there’s no “may have had CTE” about it, he had one of the more advanced cases they had ever seen,” @drew_bare observed. Of course, this doesn’t take away the tragedy that occured nor the suffering of the victims. But it shows the need for an investigation into CTE in contact sports.

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