- 5/24/2025
From suspicious substance use to crafty rule-bending, these athletes managed to dodge serious consequences for their actions. Join us as we examine the most notorious cases of sports stars who broke the rules but kept their achievements. Which controversial moment do you remember most vividly?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So can you answer right now, is Tom Brady a cheater?
00:04I don't believe so.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the sporting superstars
00:10who bent the rules a little bit too much for their own personal gain,
00:13only to find that their punishment did not fit the crime.
00:15It was your hand, or the hand of God?
00:19Cheers, you know, for me, man.
00:22Number 10, Carl Lewis.
00:24If everyone's on PEDs, is it really cheating?
00:26Well, the Carl Lewis situation in the 100-meter final at the 1988 Olympics was certainly an interesting one.
00:41Canada's Ben Johnson initially took home gold in that race,
00:44but when he tested positive for a banned substance, he was stripped of his title,
00:47leaving the silver medalist Carl Lewis as the winner.
00:50Well, this is the biggest story of the 88 Olympics.
00:52Yeah, yeah, and we're getting all attention.
00:54If we ride this thing right, we can make a lot of money out of it.
00:56We could build a sport, track and field.
00:58Later, it emerged that Lewis had also failed a test,
01:01specifically three different tests during the trials for that year's Games.
01:05In fact, the U.S. Olympics and Paralympic Committee was forced to deny
01:08that they had covered up 114 different cases of cheating over a 12-year span from that year onwards.
01:14Lewis claimed that he accidentally took the banned substances
01:17as they were available in over-the-counter medication at the time.
01:19How do you think steroids affected the sport of track and field?
01:23Well, a couple of things.
01:25Number one, it put us in the forefront of the drug issue, which I thought was a good thing
01:31because it gave us a unique opportunity to try to take the lead in fighting it.
01:36But it also put us in a place where people could say, oh, everyone's on it.
01:41Number nine, Reggie Bush and Matt Leiner.
01:43You know a play is controversial when the entire game gets named after it.
01:47Me being the competitor that I am, all I could think about was helping my teammate get into that end zone.
01:54And so I didn't even think, I just reacted.
01:57For 2005's clash between fierce rivals Notre Dame and USC,
02:00the standout moment of the matchup came when future NFL star Reggie Bush
02:04pushed his teammate and quarterback Matt Leinerd into the end zone for the winning touchdown.
02:08Touchdown, SC!
02:10This was an illegal play.
02:11Under any other circumstances, it would have been called a foul.
02:14But this year, the use of instant replays was not mandatory for non-conference games in Division 1A football.
02:19Needless to say, this controversy made them change that rule the following season.
02:23It is truly a game of inches, and sometimes it comes down to the last second on the clock.
02:27Number eight, East German women's swimmers.
02:29Going from no gold medals in women's swimming at the 1972 Olympics
02:32to then taking 11 out of 13 gold medals in the 76 games seems pretty fishy, right?
02:38Cornelia Ender wins her third individual gold medal.
02:42Shirley Babashoff's second.
02:45In all, here in Montreal, Cornelia Ender has won four gold medals.
02:49East Germany dominated the 1976 games in Montreal,
02:53despite having strong competition from other nations.
02:55Was it simply a golden generation hitting their stride at the exact same time,
02:59or was it something more sinister?
03:01Many of the victims are still struggling with the results of taking performance-enhancing drugs.
03:05Well, it would later emerge that the East German government
03:08had been running a state-sponsored doping program without letting the athletes know.
03:12They basically pumped their athletes full of PEDs and let them deal with the consequences.
03:16Sure, their gold medals were never taken, but their greatest achievement was undoubtedly ruined.
03:20Former top athletes like Andreas Krieger live with the fact that their sporting records
03:25no longer count for anything, and that their suffering and health problems were all for nothing.
03:30Number seven, Houston Astros.
03:31When it comes to modern baseball, it's hard to pull off a sign-stealing trick unless you've got a few people involved.
03:36For years and years and years, it's been up to the pitcher and the catcher to come up with a way
03:41to conceal their signs and confuse the runners so that they can't signal to the hitter what pitch is coming.
03:48For the Houston Astros, they must have thought they'd beaten the system with this clever way of cheating.
03:53Sign-stealing involves taking the pitch signals done by the opposition's pitcher
03:56and finding a way of relaying them to your own teammate.
03:59The team holding a press conference to address its role in the sign-stealing scandal that has rocked baseball.
04:04The Astros accused of using a sophisticated video system and a more primitive code of trash can bangs
04:10to alert its batters to which pitches were coming.
04:13But the Astros went as far as to use a hidden camera and pre-arranged code
04:16that involved banging trash cans to communicate with their batter.
04:19When this ruse was discovered, none of the players were punished
04:22and the Astros got to keep their 2017 World Series title.
04:25Here's a ground ball right side, could do it!
04:27The Houston Astros are world champions!
04:31Number 6. Antonio Margarito
04:32Antonio Margarito was not the only boxer to be found glove tampering,
04:36but he was definitely the highest profile case of his era.
04:39Ya todos saben que usé algo ilegal.
04:42Mancharon mi reputación, mancharon lo que yo habÃa.
04:48Whether the fighter himself knew or not, Plaster of Paris,
04:51a pastry substance that hardens when it comes into contact with water,
04:54had been added to his hand wrapping.
04:55Ya cuando pasó eso, entonces ya cuando estaba solo, yo pues me hacÃa miles de preguntas, ¿no?
05:00Pero nunca sentà yo mal vendaje, no sé.
05:05Pero yo sé que soy un peleador limpio.
05:08Prior to his fight with Shane Mosley, Mosley's trainer had noticed something off
05:11with Margarito's wrappings and they were investigated further, revealing the plaster.
05:15This called into question the results of Margarito's previous fight against Miguel Cotto,
05:19where Margarito is suspected to have tampered with his raps in his 11th round TKO over Cotto.
05:23I have to show to the people that I don't have any kind of arguments to win my fights
05:29and to show to everyone that I am back again.
05:35Number 5. Dwight Howard
05:36Not all instances of cheating need to be serious or even punishable.
05:40Weird moment with Dwight, Howard comes off the bench, asks for the ball during the Paul Milsap free throw.
05:45Looked like he rubbed something on the ball.
05:48For Houston Rockets star Dwight Howard, he found himself in the most bizarre situation imaginable
05:52when it came to light mid-game that the game ball was covered in a glue-like substance.
05:56We get a close-up of the ball with a dark, wet spot on it.
06:01So that's a second ball taken out of the game.
06:05Shortly after, Howard admitted that he had been applying the adhesive product Stick'Em to his hands
06:09and he had been doing so for quite some time.
06:11Seriously, that is the thing that actually happened.
06:13The craziest part though is that he wasn't even punished for it despite him breaking the rules.
06:17Officials are saying that Stick'Em is illegal, and the ball has Stick'Em on it, and so they're gonna have to exchange the ball.
06:28So basically he got caught, gave a clear confession, and everyone just had a big ol' laugh about it, and moved on as if nothing happened.
06:34Number 4. Jon Jones
06:36The fighting career of the two-weight UFC champion Jon Jones has been an experience, to put it lightly.
06:41Jon Jones has regained the throne!
06:45His accomplishments inside the Octagon have been truly stellar, and watching him beat several generations of great fighters has been a joy.
06:52But his constant issues with substances and legal problems outside of the cage have only been compounded by the fact that he has also failed several drug tests in recent years.
07:00It is important to note that under the UFC anti-doping policy, there is a full, fair, legal review process that is afforded to all athletes.
07:11Before any sanctions are imposed.
07:14To this day, only one win of his, a TKO from his second fight against Daniel Cormier, has actually been overturned.
07:20Jones' resume has an asterisk attached, that's for sure.
07:23I really don't, I really don't know what to say. I just, I'm really sorry about this happening.
07:29Number 3. Tom Brady
07:31Tom Brady achieved everything there was to achieve in the sport of football.
07:34But the Deflategate saga is a truly bizarre blemish in an otherwise exemplary career.
07:39Sources telling our sister network, ESPN, this is the play that led to the discovery of what is being dubbed Deflategate.
07:46This second quarter play has led to many questioning the integrity of the AFC champs.
07:52Brady was accused of telling officials to deliberately give him under-inflated balls in his Patriots team's AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, a game they won.
08:01But when it emerged that Brady had been using under-inflated balls, Deflategate was born.
08:06I feel like I've always played within the rules, I would never do anything to break the rules.
08:10Brady was suspended for four games, and upon appeal from Brady, the NFL commissioned a 243-page investigative report.
08:16In the end, the four-game ban was a mere slap on the wrist.
08:19The results of the game stood, and this incident is debated to this day.
08:22One judge called the evidence of ball tampering compelling, if not overwhelming.
08:272. Barry Bonds
08:28Baseball has certainly cleaned up its image in recent times.
08:31But right when that sport was at a real commercial peak, a huge doping scandal hit.
08:35Superstar player Barry Bonds was right at the center of it all.
08:51Seven MVP awards, 14 All-Star picks, and considered one of the greatest players of all time.
08:56In 2007, his reputation began to take some hits.
08:59Barry Bonds rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
09:02From there, we began to realize that he had been taking a cocktail of steroids, at least in the final eight years of his career.
09:07Although he faced legal challenges, he never did get stripped of his achievement.
09:11However, the reputational damage was severe.
09:13You made this decision. You went for the greed, you went for the money, you went for the fame.
09:18Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
09:24You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
09:28If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
09:341. Diego Maradona
09:36The 1986 World Cup quarterfinal contained two of the most famous goals in football history, and they were both scored by one man.
09:42The goal of the century was as clean cut as they come.
09:45Diego Maradona picked the ball up in midfield and, with 11 touches in 11 seconds, cemented his status as one of the game's all-time greats.
09:58A surging run by the legendary Diego Maradona that saw him bypass half of the England team before slotting the ball home.
10:05It's the infamous Hand of God that makes our list.
10:07He gave Argentina the lead in the 51st minute by scoring with what he famously called the Hand of God.
10:14Did Diego's hand touch the ball instead of his head? It certainly did.
10:18Maradona would deny he used his hand to score the goal for decades.
10:21Most importantly, this handball was missed by the ref and the goal stood, setting Argentina on a path to their second World Cup victory.
10:28The Maradona-inspired team would go on to win the tournament, with a 3-2 win over West Germany in the final.
10:34Which rule-bending incidents do you remember clearly? Let us know in the comments.
10:38I swear to this day, I didn't know he'd push me in until about two minutes later.
Recommended
9:14
|
Up next
33:28
23:32
11:26
11:22
25:37
11:06
22:40
18:52
12:57
13:44
26:24
12:22
10:35
27:26
14:20
17:06