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What a claim to fame…

Hot off the final episode of The Last Dance and the rehashing of the famous “Flu Game”, the 1997 NBA final between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz that’s gone down in history as one of the most hotly debated games of all time. Did Jordan have the flu? Or was he just having a bad day? Our money is on MJ definitely doing it tough that day, with MJ visibly suffering from flu-like symptoms and looking noticeably weak. If that isn’t persuasive enough, that famous pic of Jordan leaning on Scottie Pippen says it all.

But MJ’s trainer Tim Grover has a very specific reason why he thinks MJ wasn’t at peak performance that day, stating in the last episode of The Last Dance that his sickness was due to food poisoning from pizza MJ ate the night before. Now, Craig Fite, the very Pizza Hut employee who personally made and delivered said pizza, has spoken out and dismissed the accusation, appearing on ‘The Big Show’ to give his account of events.

Fite, being a Bulls fan, handled the order completely by himself, stating “I remember saying this: ‘I will make the pizza, because I don’t want any of you doing anything to it.’ And then I told the driver, you’re going to take me there.”

From then on, his story drastically differs from Grover’s account, stating that himself and the pizza driver were the only people who went up to the floor of MJ’s room, whereas Grover stated that “five guys” arrived. But Fite states that “As soon as the elevator door opened, it was like I got punched in the face with cigar smoke”.

Going on, Fite said “One thing I remind everybody is, he was smoking so many cigars. They had windows open. He didn’t have a shirt on or he was in a tank top. At around 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon in Park City, the sun is gone behind that mountain so it gets colder up there.”

Yeah that definitely isn’t good for the body the night before a finals game, but regardless, Grover states that he had a “bad feeling about this” the second Fite left after delivering the pizza, claiming that it was that very pizza that altered the course of the game.

MJ still ended up scoring 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 block (including a 3-pointer with less than a minute left) so it’s not like it ruined his game completely, but of course, there’s no denying he looked significantly unwell that day.

Crazy stuff, check out the full Fite interview below.