Was a boxing promoter called Barry Gibson found dead? Fact check

A series of rumours claim that a promoter named Barry Gibson working on the upcoming boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Connor McGregor has been found dead after claiming the boxing bout was fixed.

The story appears to have been originally published on the website NewsPunch.com though has since been copied to a number of different websites, and claims that the promoter Barry Gibson was shot dead in his jeep in what looks to be an execution style killing. A portion of the article reads –

Barry Gibson was found dead in his hometown of Washington D.C. in what has the hallmarks of an execution-style killing, hours after blowing the lid on the Mayweather-McGregor fight backstage at a press conference in Toronto, Canada.
Early reports claim the 45-year-old was found shot dead in his Jeep, along with one other man, believed to be a colleague.

The rumours are not true, and this is just an example of fake news. The website that published the article, NewsPunch.com, appears to be a fake news website that features an array of inaccurate or plain false articles, and this appears to be one of the latest.

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There is no boxing promoter with the name Barry Gibson and certainly no news that a promoter by that name claimed during a press conference that the boxing match has been scripted or fixed. As such, it is also fake that said promoter was found dead. In fact all the claims made in this nonsense article are plainly false.

That goes for the photo that adorns the fake article as well, since that photo was snatched from a completely unrelated story. That photo actually shows the body of one of the victims on the Washington DC sniper back in 2002.

The story is fake and we don’t recommend spreading it.