There has been many a scandal in sports history. The 1919 World Series when 8 players from the Chicago White Sox, or now known as the Black Sox, threw the series. There was Ben Johnson winning the gold in the '88 Olympics then flunking his drug test. Even last years Winter Olympics, there was the whole figure skating thing with the French judge. Scandal in sports has been with us since the dawn of time, and will always be with us, and I think I've found yet another scandal.

Rap Battles may not get a lot of coverage in your local newspaper, or even on ESPN. Surprisingly, ESPN 2 doesn't cover it either, and I thought they showed anything. Non-the-less, rap battles do exist, and is it ever exciting. Recently there has been a championship battle in Detroit's infamous Shelter where big time underdog, white boy, B. Rabbit has won the battle championship. You can see this battle on a wonderful rap battle DVD titled 8 Mile.

In this battle, B. Rabbit goes through 3 rounds to win it all. For those that have seen it, you are probably wondering where the scandal lies. Rabbit seems to have won fair and square right? Papa Doc forfeits in the final round and doesn't rap at all. Do I think Papa Doc forfeited in an effort to make sure Rabbit won? Maybe he was paid off? No, I think Rabbit out rapped Papa Doc, but I'm not so sure that Rabbit fairly belonged in that final round in the first place. I'm going to break down the battle round by round to show you what I mean. I'm going to break down some of each rapper's lines one at time comparing them. The lines will not necessarily be in the order they rapped them, but instead I'm going to take one line from each battler that I think go together, and pick a winner of that line. So, as MC/referee Future always says, 'Yo DJ, Spin that shit!'�

Round 1 ' Lickity Split vs. B. Rabbit

LS ' 'Take some real advice and go form a group with Vanilla Ice'�
BR ' 'He sounds like Eric Sermon, the generic version'�
Here we have the battlers comparing each other to another famous rapper, in an insulting way. By telling Rabbit he should go form a group with Vanilla, he's not only telling him that his raps are so wack that he should hang with someone equally lame, but he's also cleverly making fun of him for being white. Now B. Rabbit gets some credit for coming up with not one but two rhymes in such a short line, Eric ' generic and Sermon ' version. His downfall here is the fact that he's comparing Lickity to arguably one of the best MC's of all time. Even though he's saying he's a generic version of Sermon, he's still saying he raps like him.
Winner ' Lickity Split

LS ' 'Silly Rabbit, I know why they call you that, because you follow Future like he has carrots up his ass crack'�
BR ' 'You're a disgrace, yeah they call me Rabbit, but this is a turtle race.'�
Lickity's line is a simple insult, no need to break it down. Now, Rabbit's line seems simple at first glance, he's a rabbit, this is a turtle race, rabbits are faster then turtles. But, what is it that makes people talk about turtle and rabbit races in cliché form? It comes from the famous Tortoise and the Hare story from when we were kids. If memory serves me correctly, in that story, the cocky hare, or rabbit, ends up losing to the tortoise, or turtle. Therefore, Rabbit is basically saying he's going to lose.
Winner ' Lickity Split

The majority of the other lines are pretty equal, but Rabbit does say this, 'You can't get with me spitting this shit, lickity split, shicklity lickity, lickity shicklity'�'� Now why it sounds funny when you hear him do it, let's be honest, it's not that skillful. Making up words and sounds that rhyme is a classic move when you're struggling. I don't know how many times my friends and I would sit in the car in one of our many drinking lots, pre-funking before going to the club, free styling. You were guaranteed to hear us use the fake words trick multiple times. So, Rabbit definitely loses points for that. To top it all off, it takes Rabbit almost 30 seconds after the record starts before he finally starts to rap. The only thing Rabbit really did to outshine Lickity was when he dropped his pants at the end and gave Lickity a half moon. As huge of a move as that was, I still think it was too little, too late. Apparently we'll never know though, as Future never went to the crowd to determine the winner this round. He just up and announced Rabbit as the unanimous winner. As far as I'm concerned Rabbit should have never advanced to the second round.

Round 2 ' Lotto vs. B. Rabbit

Now, we've already determined that Rabbit doesn't belong here, but he's here, so let's break down the second round.

L ' 'I feel bad I've got to murder that dude from Leave it to Beaver'�
BR ' 'Ward I think you were a little hard on the beaver. So was Eddie Haskell, and Mrs. Cleaver'� (pointing to Papa Doc when he says Mrs. Cleaver)
Like Lickity before him, Lotto finds a new, and clever way to make fun of Rabbit for being a white guy here. Rabbit fires back with his Beaver reference, but he ends up making fun of the guy off stage that he isn't even battling. The point of a rap battle is to insult the guy you are going against, not somebody off the stage. I believe he did this knowing that he was going to win the battle, because it's fixed, so he wanted to get an extra jab in at his next opponent. The scandal signs are everywhere.
Winner ' Lotto

L ' 'I'll spit a racial slur, honky, sue me ' this is a horror flick, except the black guy doesn't die in this movie'�
BR ' 'You see how far all the white jokes get you, boys like how you going to let Vannila Ice diss you'�
Insult wise, both of these pack a very solid punch. I have to give the advantage to Lotto though. His is just more original. We already heard a Vannila Ice reference in the first round, bringing it back in the second round takes away from its power.
Winner ' Lotto

Now just like in the first round, we have Rabbit taking another 23 seconds after the record starts before he begins his rap. Also, twice Rabbit uses the fake words that rhyme method. 'I didn't hear a word you said, himdeboom blahdebled'� Plus, he just breaks in to fake words, no intro, 'blah, de boom blah, de blah, de boom blah'�, major point loss in my book. Finally, when it comes time for Future to get the crowd reaction to pick a winner, they both get the same amount of cheers. So Future has to do it again, this time when he asks what they think about B. Rabbit, he really emphasis Rabbits name, and gives the crowd a stern look as to say, 'do you want your money or not? Now cheer!'� Rabbit of course wins, barely, and moves on to the final round.

Round 3 ' B. Rabbit vs. Papa Doc

In round 3 Papa Doc forfeits and Rabbit wins easily. Even I'll admit that Rabbits rhymes in the third round were by far his strongest, and even stronger then those of who I though should have won the first two rounds. The fact remains, he shouldn't even have been there. I think at this point it's obvious that Rabbits friendship with the host of the event, Future, is what got him to this position. In an effort to further this point, take a look at this fact. In the third round Rabbit continues to rap a full 18 seconds after his time is up. Why didn't Future cut him off? Shouldn't he be disqualified? Papa Doc should at least be given an extra 18 seconds to be fair, but when Future hands him the mike, he makes no mention of giving him the extra time.

There was an injustice at The Shelter that night my friends. As you can see, B. Rabbit advanced and won all three rounds of the rap battle undeservedly. Like the LA Lakers in game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, B. Rabbit had the referee in his pocket. It's a shame Papa Doc gave up too, because I think even with Futures hold over the audience, it would have been easy for him to beat Rabbit. At the end of Rabbit's rap, during the illegal extra 18 seconds, he tells the crowd 'Fuck you'� and 'I don't want to win'�. I'm sure the crowd would have gladly sent the disrespectful Rabbit packing for those comments. Just like we'll never know if Vince McMahon really screwed Brett Hart, we'll never know if B. Rabbit is better the Papa Doc.

Want to comment on this Essays? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Essays and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...