Tweet
Tyson vs McNeeley: The War
'Thanks to Mike Tyson I have been resurrected. I was dead in the media cave, but I came back to life and rolled away the boulder.
-Don King
'I'm going to wrap you in a cocoon of horror.'
-Peter McNeeley
The deal:
-Don King
'I'm going to wrap you in a cocoon of horror.'
-Peter McNeeley
The deal:
Tyson was paid $25, 000, 000 to fight Peter McNeeley, a boxing bum whose fight statistics were so contrived they bordered on the criminal. Apart from the fact that he was a big white Irish-American who was certain to lose, McNeeley had been chosen as Tyson's first opponent because of his record. Thirty-eight fights, thirty-seven wins with twenty of them coming in the first round. Don King loved that kind of CV. It helped him sell the fight to his potential 'two billion' pay-per-view watchers around the world.
King once said that, in boxing, 'everything you hear is a lie'; and so it was with Peter McNeeley's credentials as a boxer. Although it was true to say that he had beaten thirty-seven men in the ring, it was more pertinent to know that fourteen of McNeeley's victims had never won a fight between them. As Boxing News revealed a week before the fight, his opponents' combined record consisted of 168 wins, 366 defeats and 15 draws - a success rate of 30 per cent. Most of the pugs were total unknowns. The few familiar names were of the ilk of Ron Drinkwater who had been retired for fifteen years before he was exhumed by the McNeeley cmp in 1993. The grey and sadly parched Drinkwater was knocked back inside a minute.
McNeeley was sufficently encouaged to turn to Tyson at the final press conference and warn him that 'I'm going to wrap you in a cocoon of horror.' It was a great line, which even Tyson loved; but ultimately, it only helped whip Don King into a state of near-hysterical excitement. 'People all over the world, from Irelands Belfast to New York and Chicago, will be decked out in green,' he promised. 'The leprechauns will be dancing from glen to glen, the chaps will be singing Irish lullabies and the shamrocks will be shining!'
Turning to laud each fighter, while a dejected Tyson mouthed 'bull****', King hit more ecstatic heights. Of Peter McNeely he said, 'few boxers have fought lesser opponents with greater skill'; while 'thanks to Mike Tyson I have been resurrected. I was dead in the media cave, but I came back to life and rolled away the boulder. This is going to be the biggest event in the history of sport! That is a fact. This is not a fight, this is a global happeneing! Call your cable operator now! Hurry! For the first time ever two billion people will watch on pay-per-view these two great gladiators get it on in the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena! That is a fact!' Less a fact than a midly massaged statistic; and yet Tyson-McNeeley was set to shatter all pay-per-view records despite the fact that it would cost most Americans almost $50 to watch the carnage on TV.
Boxing Illustrated's editor, Herbert G. Goldman, was more laconic than King in asessing the fight's historical significance to the rest of us: 'Well, if you're the type who watches every minute of the O.J Simpson trial, a boxing fanatic, a Mike Tyson addict, and the sort of guy who doesn't mind tossing fifty bucks into a strippers G-string, pick up the phone and order...'
In London, Harry Mullan was more disturbed by King's relentless selling of the Tyson-McNeeley extravaganza. 'As editor for the Independent on Sunday, 'I frequently find myself a spokesman for pro=boxing faction. This time, though, along with everyone else who has trotted out the ritual arguments in defense of the too-often indefensible, I have to climb out of the bunker, hands in the air and squinting in the sunlight. What is taking place in Las Vegas is as immoral and wicked as a public hanging, and the fact that McNeeley is skipping to the gallows is no justification. He will be butchered - probably within the round and certainly within three - and the harder he is hit, the more comprehensively he is battered, the louder the 16, 000 capacity crowd will howl their approval. There must be decency and dignity in boxing, otherwise no one with a grain of humanity in their soul could ever watch it, but will it be in evidence at the MGM Garden Arena.'
The fight:
Mike Tyson walked to the ring in his black executioner shorts and boots, with only a ferocious scowl and a white towel around his bare neck for company. After the histrionics of Chris Eubank and his Harley -Davidson and Naseem Hamed and his leopard-skin skirt and shades, there was a stripped-down chill in Tyson's return to basics.He was back.
The fight lasted eighty-nine seconds, which meant that Tyson earned
$280 898.89 a second. As soon as the bell rang, McNeeley charged across the ring.
His head down and his arms flailed furiously, as if he knew
that his only chance was to surprise a rusty Tyson with an early punch.
HE SUCCEEDED IN BEWILDERING TYSON FOR A MOMENT. MIGHTY MIKE SEEMED UNCERTAIN ON HOW BEST TO COPE WITH MCNEELEY CRAWLING ALL OVER ......
....until, after eight seconds, the old instincts took over. Tyson clipped home a punch and McNeeley fell down - only to instantly jump up with, in Hugh McIlvanney's words, 'the briskness of a jogger who was ready for his orange juice'. The Hurricane-Man stormed back at Tyson and was allmost blown away by the wind of Tyson's rushed misses. But as soon as Mike found a semblance of accuracy, the fight was over. A couple of mistimed left hooks and a swift and shuddering right uppercut went to work inside McNeeleys's spinning head. The Medfield Mauler pitched against the ropes and then tumbled to the canvas like he had reached home after a long night on the Guinness.
McNeeley, however, was ready for one more. Back on his feet he held his gloves high to indicate his desire for another slug at Mike. As Mills Lane went through the mandatory count, he noticed that Tyson had not moved to a neutral corner. But, as Mills turned towards him, he saw another example of boxing's unpredictablility. McNeeley's trainer, Vinny Vacchionene, known as 'Curly' because of his bald dome, hurled himself into the ring in the eighty-ninth second, knowing that such an action would immediately disqualify his fighter. Vicchione had seen the full impact of that Tyson uppercut and he could imagine what was coming next.
As boos and chants of 'bull****, bull****' cascaded down from the cheap seats, the $200 rip-off cushions at the very top and back of the arena, Curly was certain of his actions. 'I feel a responsibility to Peter and I thought about Jimmy Garcia. I did the right thing to save Peter. He's only twenty six and he's like a son to me.'
'I stick by Curly,' McNeeley confirmed, 'he's like a father to me. But I told you I was coming to fight and I took it to him.I don't feel bad about anything. Vinny did what he thought best for me, but I could have gone on fighting. I wasn't hurt and Mike knew I was in there with him. You can be sure about that.
I was no frigging pushover!'
Tyson had already left the ring with a curt, 'I felt good in there tonight. Thank God we both came through it healthy. I've still got a lot to learn, a lot to go through..'
Don King, meanwhile, exulted in the present. 'Tonight I gave you sensation! Spectacle! Peter was raining blows from all angles directions. Nobody has gone for Mike like that. It was the most terrific altercation mankind could wish to see!
........Who cares how long it lasted?'
Next
Steve Lott visits Tyson in prison
Not until thet had hugged and parted and Lott was safely behind the wheel of his car , with the prison walls and razor wire in his rearview mirror, did he allow the tears to fall
Not until thet had hugged and parted and Lott was safely behind the wheel of his car , with the prison walls and razor wire in his rearview mirror, did he allow the tears to fall
Comment