In episode 9 of The Last Dance, Michael Jordan revealed that his famous “flu game” was actually food poisoning. He claimed that he ordered a pizza the night before, and it had made him sick. However, the man that prepared and delivered the pizza has come forward. He told his side of the story — contrasting the one we heard initially.
Despite suffering from flu-like symptoms, Michael Jordan scored 38 points in game five of the NBA Finals. After the game, teammate Scottie Pippen had to help MJ walk off the court.
The Netflix and ESPN mini-series revealed that it was allegedly food poisoning from a late-night pizza order the night before.
“I ate the pizza all by myself. Nobody else ate the pizza. I wake up about 2:30 am throwing up left and right. It really wasn’t the flu game. It was food poisoning,” said Jordan in the documentary.
Craig Fite, the assistant manager for a Pizza Hut in Salt Lake City, calls this story “a bunch of crap.” He says that he took it upon himself to make and deliver the pizza personally because he did not want anyone to do anything to it. Fite claimed to have been a Bulls fan.
“I followed all the rules. At the time, I was trying to impress the store manager there,” Fite said on The Big Show Podcast.
Jordan had said that five people were delivering the pizza. However, Fite had a different vision of what happened that day.
“That’s a bunch of crap. There were two of us. I didn’t even have that many people working at the time at the store”.
There is no way to know for sure what happened that day in Utah, but one thing is sure: MJ’s “Flu-Game” will be remembered in history, no matter what different stories pop up.
