The cool, calm and collected, multiple World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Ted Forrest, embroiled in a Twitter row with Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow’s brother over an unpaid $2m prop bet.
Imagine how pissed off you would be, if you nearly killed yourself over a prop bet, and the challenger never paid up.
That’s exactly what seems to have happened in the infamous Ted Forrest v Mike Matusow weight loss bet of 2010.
Let’s rewind a little.
During dinner, at the Commerce Casino, four years ago, Forrest told Matusow that he could lose 48 pounds in weight and drop under the 140-pound mark. Believing the bet was impossible, Matusow accepted a wager that would cost him $2m if Forrest lost the weight.
The only stipulations were that Forrest couldn’t take any diuretics, amputate any part of his body or undertake any form of surgery. Forrest was like a man on a mission. He exercised like a maniac, cut out sugar, ate a ton of raw and organic vegetables and cut right back on his meat intake.
During the WSOP, Forrest would use the hour dinner breaks to take four-mile runs, and would walk to/from the Rio every day. At his peak, he was walking 16 miles per day, spending six hours per day in the gym, and then he fasted between July 4 and July 15 to make sure that he would get below the 140-pound mark.
On July 15, Forrest weighed in at 137.5 pounds.
Matusow owed him $2 million.
That was four years ago, and according to Ted Forrest’s Twitter account. Matusow has only paid Forrest $70,500 of the $1.8m he still owes in in the past four years.
.@CardPlayerMedia Correcting the numbers: @themouthmatusow has payed me $70.500 of the 1.8million he owes me for the weight loss bet #4years
— Ted Forrest (@ForrestTed) September 9, 2014
So far, there has been no response from The Mouth but his older brother has leapt to his defense by stating Matusow owes him nothing because Forrest failed to submit to a drug test.
@ForrestTed @CardPlayerMedia @themouthmatusow wasnt part of that bet for you to submit to drug testing? Mike is weak, I’m not
— StockMatusow (@StockMatusow) September 15, 2014
After nearly starving himself to death, in order to win the two milly, Forrest’s response to the drug accusation is comedy gold.
@StockMatusow do you really think I would undertake that weight bet and use drugs? That would be really dangerous and stupid
— Ted Forrest (@ForrestTed) September 15, 2014
It seems that Forrest’s ire has been exacerbated because just prior to the bet, Forrest had paid Matusow $100,000 after he had successfully shifted his weight from 250 pounds to 181 pounds in a year. Speaking to ESPN contributor Gary Wise, in the aftermath of the $2 million prop bet, Matusow told Forrest, “I don’t have the $2 million to pay out. I made the bet because I didn’t think it was feasibly possible.” I realize this was the time that the Full Tilt Poker gravy train was at full steam, but $2 million? Did Forrest really believe that Matusow would hand him $2 million? I guess he did. “He’ll get paid all of it but I made it clear when we made the bet he’d get $5,000 a month. He tried to kill himself for $5,000 a month.” Matusow told Wise. Back to Forrest’s Twitter beef with brother Matusow and it seems the installments of $5,000 per month have also failed to come through the mail, with Forrest telling Matusow’s brother that he “had even failed to live up to that.” One reason that Forrest has not received more of the money is because Matusow was waiting for him to die.
After I won the bet mike said that he was going to wait six months before paying me anything to see if I would die.
— Ted Forrest (@ForrestTed) September 17, 2014
And yet despite the beef, Ted Forrest continues to be a man of extreme integrity after declaring that Matusow still deserves to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Mike deserves to get into the hall of fame this has nothing to do with that
— Ted Forrest (@ForrestTed) September 17, 2014
Now let’s all get together and vote for the pair of them so we can have a heads-up battle of a different kind come Poker Hall of Fame night.
Ding-ding.
