Boom! Ex-Mariner turned boxer Curtis Woodhouse just scored a knockout blow for every athlete who's ever been harassed by sports trolls on Twitter.
The former Grimsby Town midfielder lost his country's light welterweight title to Shayne Singleton on Friday. Two days later, a troll using the handle @jimmyob88 began taunting Woodhouse, calling him a "complete disgrace," "laughable joke" and "waste of spunk." Woodhouse, who played at Blundell Park in 2006 before making the switch to boxing, initially replied with some trash talk of his own, then took matters into his own hands in a way not yet done by anyone in the sports world's growing list of trolled pros.
Sports trolls have become a growing problem on Twitter over the past several months as death threats and abuse have grown less and less shocking. NBA star Pau Gasol, NFL player Kyle Williams and broadcaster Erin Andrews are just a few recent victims of particularly harsh treatment. Some even see ugly fan behavior as a threat to the platform's viability with athletes and sports celebrities.
But perhaps if more folks took the Woodhouse approach, sports fans would calm down. After growing tired of the banter, Woodhouse made an offer to his thousands of followers: "ill give £1000 to anybody that provides me with address and picture of this man! knock knock!!"
The troll had a smart reply: "what u going to do knock me out like your last opponent ooops"
to which Woodhouse replied cryptically: "you will find out soon enough son"
Soon enough, Woodhouse appeared to have figured out the troll's street of residence, which got the troll's attention, and then Woodhouse tweeted a photograph of the troll's street name sign.
Then Woodhouse called him out and seemed to induce a bit of a panic, with the troll tweeting: "i am sorry its getting abit out of hand i am in the wrong i accept that"
Woodhouse then said he got a call from someone who knew the troll and that the troll was begging mercy. But it seems a bit more knowledge of how Twitter works could have saved Woodhouse a lot of time and effort as he tweeted: "just found out you can block people!! could of let me know earlier i could have saved 20 quid in petrol!"
Should more athletes deal with trolls this way? Leave your comments below
