The 50 Worst Flops and Dives in Sports History (Video)

Ah, yes, the wide, wild, and wacky world of sports: Where men act like men, and some men act like they've just been shot in the kneecap in an effort to get a foul or penalty called on their opponent. What, you doubt that some of your favorite athletes have given some Academy Award-worthy performances in the past? How about a few names to get you going: Vlade Divac, Manu Ginobili, Jurgen Klinsmann, Alex Ovechkin, and yes, even Brett Favre and Derek Jeter. They've all have "embellished" plays in the past. But don't just take our word for it, here's the video evidence of the 50 Worst Flops and Dives in Sports History...

Player: Chris Bosh

Date: 2/24/2011

Let's just say that we're pretty sure CB4 didn't need to go into the locker room after the game and shed any tears over the hit that he takes from Carlos Boozer here.

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"The King of Flop." Greatest YouTube clip title ever? Yeah, we think so.

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UConn's freshman point guard looked like a Smart car getting rear-ended (pause!) by an 18-wheeler here after grabbing a board to help stymy a Kentucky comeback in this year's NCAA Tournament. But, upon further review, it barely qualifies as a fender-bender.

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If this guy didn't have such a cool first name—and if Michigan didn't suck so bad back in 2007—we'd be waaaaay more upset at the way this play turns out. As it is, though, we're pretty sure UM fucked up and gave the ball back to Oregon after the 15-yard penalty for roughing the punter anyway so whatever.

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This particular dive isn't the worst one we've ever seen in an NHL game (stay tuned!) but it is about the 5,467,328th time a Carolina Hurricanes player has gotten caught trying to get his Greg Louganis on after a hit on the ice. Word to the wise: If we see you guys doing it so do the refs. Cool it.

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Here's the thing about this particular dive by the AC Milan striker: If he doesn't decide to take a dive five full steps after taking an extremely minor nudge, he probably has a pretty good chance at getting a shot off and scoring. D'oh!

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Ayo, Ribeiro: You didn't get too much ice in your vagina on this play, did you?

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Most of the NBA's most notorious floppers—Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola, Raja Bell, et al—do their dirty work in the paint so the zebras have a hard time seeing them do it. Not D-Fish! This dude is straight-up shameless when it comes time to get to floppin'. Like here, where he handed the boys in black-and-white a front row ticket and still managed to get the call to go his way. Good grief.

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Looks like Sideshow Bob learned a thing or two watching Derek Fisher play for all those years! If you only saw the final five seconds of this clip, you'd think he just got laid out by Ray Lewis, not D-Fish. Well played, my friend.

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You know it's bad when your opponent has to get on the mic after a boxing match is over and personally apologize to the crowd, eh?

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"Any flop you can do, I can do beeeeeeetter!" Are these two dudes serious with this?

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Too bad Italy didn't get calls like this at the 2010 World Cup! This one at the '06 Cup helped them move into a draw with Australia and advanced them to the next round.

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Exactly six people watched this game when it aired in the middle of the night back in '08. Too bad one of those six people wasn't the idiot referee who called a running into the kicker penalty in OT and nearly cost Hawaii the game—if not for Fresno's Shankapotomus of a kicker.

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To be fair, Jaromir Jagr does get a piece of Marty Brodeur's mask on this play. But, yo: You're wearing a goddamned mask, son! You can't really be that injured, can you?

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During the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup against France, Croatia's Bilic was marking Laurent Blanc on a free kick. After Bilic held him slightly, Blanc pushed him to get free and made contact with his chest and grazed his chin. Bilic fell down gripping his forehead and Blanc was eventually red-carded and suspended for the WC final. Keep it classy, Croatia!

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A stiff breeze could have hit Lewis harder than the Jacksonville Jaguars special teams does here. Nice try, though.

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This guy either got really confused about when he's supposed to take a dive—or just figured he might as well take the rest of the day off. Either way, there's no excuse for getting carted off the field (!) after taking a love tap like this on the chin from one of your own teammates. SMFH.

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Any guy nicknamed "The Drunken Master" is usually cool with us. But we can't cosign him purposely taking a fall in the ring against Allan Vester in '99—especially since he claims the only reason he did it was to protest the soft gloves that he was required to wear for the match.

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Just so we're clear, can you really get thrown out of a soccer game for doing this!? We don't really ride for Becks like that, but we don't blame him for seeing red after getting a red card for doing, well, whatever it is the ref thinks he saw him do here.

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C'mon, Ovi—you're better than that!

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If old-ass Juwan Howard was really gonna run Amar'e Stoudemire over, we'd much rather see him do it in his Hoveround.

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This shit is gangster as hell! Meier—then the coach of German club MSV Duisburg—got into a heated argument with 1. FC Koln midfielder Albert Streit during a meeting between the two German clubs. Then, out of nowhere, Meier headbutted Streit but fell down in pain, pretending he was the victim, and got Streit ejected from the game. We're guessing it wasn't worth the three-month suspension he received afterwards, though.

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Ayo, G: You want to wait until you actually get hit before you fall back and take a charge. Aren't Duke players supposed to be smart enough to know that?

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We've got a new nickname for you after seeing this, Diesel: The Big Pus...Oh, sorry. That's not very nice. But after all the bitching and moaning that you did about other players flopping when they played against you over the years, did you really have to go and flop at the first available opportunity? Weak.

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Big Shot Rob was also a Big Fat Flopper. And much like his fellow veteran flop artist Derek Fisher, he wasn't above doing it right out in the open for all to see. Shout out to Jeff Van Gundy for calling him on it!

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And we're not not even gonna bring up the time ol' boy had to get carried off the court and put into a wheelchair...Oops, guess we just did.

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As the analyst here says: "Capital F-L-O-P." We can't say it any better ourselves.

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That a referee in the NBA actually fell for AK47's foolishness here is ridiculous. No wonder no one caught on to Tim Donaghy's shenanigans until the FBI got involved.

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If you can't get your opponent to foul you and you don't want to risk getting carded for flopping, you do have another option: Pick up your opponent's hand and force him to hit you. Hey, it worked for this guy playing in an U20 game for Chile. Well, almost.

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We're not gonna sit here and act like we know all the rules of lacrosse, but we have to believe that diving headfirst into the goal is not a part of the game. This guy lost.

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Remember how excited that guy was to see a double rainbow? That's kind of how we feel when we see this double flop. Woooooooooow!

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Props to whoever put this YouTube clip into slow motion and made it look like a deleted scene from The Matrix. Our minds are completely blown after seeing how it ends.

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Avery actually gets hit—and hit hard!—by Jaromir Jagr here. Which is why we're not really sure why he didn't just take a spill when he first got hit instead of waiting for Jagr to skate by before launching himself onto the ice. But something tells us that lacrosse player we just mentioned would be proud!

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NFL referee Jeff Triplette was just about the only guy who could shut down CJ and stop him from getting additional yards back in '09. He did it by calling him out on this flop.

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In '02, Senegal became one of only two countries from Africa to ever make it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Unfortunately, this was the play that they had to use to get there. Tisk, tisk.

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Ah, yes. Witness the moment that made BD think, "I need to take my act to Los Angeles next year!"

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Is it just us—or does Sid the Kid look like Ricky from Boyz n the Hood taking one in the back here? Dramatic!

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So, Rivaldo took a ball to the knee in a 2002 World Cup game against Turkey—but grabbed his face?!? And the worst part: He actually got away with it. Soccer refs don't do the bad reputation of refs in general any favors, do they?

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Wait for it....wait for it...wait for it....waaaaaait for it. THERE HE GOES! Seriously, could Drummond have waited any longer to take a fall here?

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We give Nedney a lot of credit for doing whatever it took to get his team a W in the first round of the '03 NFL Playoffs here. But we're sure everyone involved would have felt a whole lot better if he'd just made the 31-yard field goal that he missed originally and not relied on a questionable penalty to get the job done.

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Faking an injury to slow down an opposing team's offense is frowned upon in college football. And after watching this clip of Cal orchestrating fake injuries to slow down Oregon's fast-paced O last season, we are definitely frowning.

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We hate to say it, but Kovalev got what he deserved here. Just a few years after faking an injury as a member of the Rangers that disallowed a goal by an opponent, the Canadiens right winger sustained an actual injury during a playoff game against the Bruins that ended up costing his team a goal when refs thought he was putting on another show. Karma is a bitch, son!

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You know who you never expect to flop for the sake of getting a penalty in a football game? The holder on a field goal attempt. In a Super Bowl game. On a penalty that never should have been called. By a ref who must have thought this was an exhibition game. Sigh.

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If you want to blame someone for the evolution of flopping in soccer, cast an evil eye on Klinsmann. He used this blatant flop in the 1990 World Cup to help Germany secure a victory over Argentina in the WC final. And trust us when we say that the game of soccer was never the same again.

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It looks completely ridiculous, but we respect Ron-Ron's approach to flopping. If you're gonna do it, we say you might as well go allllllll the way. Which is why he almost ends up in the nosebleed seats here after Paul Pierce extends his arm ever so slightly to create some separation. Grab us some popcorn on your way back, man.

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Truth be told, we could have a list of the 50 worst Manu Ginobili flops and dives and we'd probably still have plenty left over on the cutting room floor. But this one on Bonzi Wells is just stooooooopid. Like, do the refs even care that he's making them all look like jackasses when he pulls shit like this?

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There's flopping—and then there's this stunt pulled by Rojas, the goalkeeper for Chile's national team. In an attempt to try and help his Chilean team avoid taking an L to Brazil, Rojas pretended to get hit by a firework that was thrown on the field by a Brazilian fan. He writhed around on the field in pain, grabbed his bloody forehead and caused the game to get called. It would have worked, too, except video evidence showed that he didn't actually get hit by the firework and instead pulled a razor blade out from one of his goalie gloves—how fuckin' crazy did this story just get!?—and cut himself to force officials to call the game. For his efforts, he earned a lifetime ban from FIFA and Chile was banned from two subsequent World Cups. Crazy ish.

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DJ hasn't been able to get on base much lately by actually, you know, hitting the ball so he's resorted to doing it by any means necessary. We'd expect this from A-Rod, but you, Captain? Not so much.

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Yeah, yeah, Michael Strahan probably would have gotten a sack on Favre anyway at some point during this game to become the all-time single-season sack record holder. But did he really have to make it so obvious that he was going to let him get the record? Fortunately—or, rather, unfortunately—this won't be the thing that everyone remembers when Brett finally retires. Word to Jenn Sterger.

Player: Vlade Divac

Date: Various

Vlade is the G.O.A.T. when it comes to flopping. And as if you needed video evidence of it, this clip is a tribute to the best to ever do it. Flop it like it's hot, son.

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