McNeeley, 26, is perfectly cast to pose as a contender. He has the pedigree: his grandfather was an Olympic boxer; his father, Tom, fought Floyd Patterson-and took a savage beating–for the heavyweight title. He has the punch, with 30 KOs along the way to a 36-1 record. And like every other aspiring heavyweight since Muhammad Ali, he has the patter. At an appearance in Harlem, he stared at Tyson and declared, “I will knock him out in three rounds.” But most experts view him as a classic patsy, which accounts for Vegas oddsmakers favoring Tyson by as much as 25-1. “You don’t have to fix fights anymore,” says boxing writer Bert Sugar. “You fix opponents.”
Since Rocky Marciano retired in 1955, the fight game has been searching for a “Great White Hope.” Promoter Don King, who handles both McNeeley and Tyson, insists he is colorblind when it comes to matchups. But he can’t resist dubbing McNeeley “The Irish Hurricane.” To date, Peter has not proved much of a storm. He wasn’t even a Top 10-ranked heavyweight until King signed him up last year with an eye to making him Tyson’s first victim. He has built his record beating fighters who were to McNeeley what he is to Tyson; the cumulative record of his opponents (like Phil Prince, the Fighting Mortician) is 110 wins, 301 losses and 11 draws. When a city spawns a genuine contender, the hometown press is given to unabashed booster-ism. But Boston Magazine dubbed McNeeley “The Great White Hopeless.”
Even McNeeley’s manager, Vinny Vecchione, moves quickly from hype–“He’s a purebred pit-bull-type fighter who won’t back out”-to fervent hopes that Peter “just lands a couple punches.” He says the fight,though, is a no-lose proposition, a snowcase that will lead to a string of big-money bouts. But when pressed, the cornerman concedes that McNeeley has to prove himself worthy. Translation: he has to last at least three rounds. That would not only satisfy the fight world but would measure up to McNeeley’s dad, who climbed off the canvas 10 times before being knocked out by Patterson in the fourth round. “If Peter gets flattened in five seconds,” says Vecchione, “that’s bad.”
Peter himself seems unconcerned, enjoying his stint in the limelight. And why not? He will be paid $700,000 to fight Tyson, $699,500 more than for his last fight. McNeeley has appeared on Letterman and recently attracted a dozen reporters to watch him do battle with the training table. (Clam chowder, marinated sirloin tips, mashed potatoes, several rolls with butter, two large pieces of garlic bread–and salad without any dressing.) “Peter signed up on blind faith,” says King. “Didn’t ask for money. Didn’t ask for nothing!”
The young man who will enter the ring at the MGM Grand just moments ahead of Tyson admits he’s “a square peg in the fight game.” He lives with his divorced mother, a professor of fashion design, in his boyhood home in suburban Medfield, Mass., and shares a bedroom with a younger brother. He even has a poster of Tyson over his bed. Peter didn’t start boxing until after high school, pursuing an amateur career while getting a political-science degree at Bridgewater State College. He had only 21 fights before turning pro in 1991. “All those other guys left their best fights in the amateurs,” he says. McNeeley supported his career with odd jobs-from construction to catering – and even sold tickets to his own fights.
Now Don King is selling the tickets, with ringside seats going for $1,500 and a worldwide pay-per-view audience expected to number hundreds of millions. Of course, even McNeeley realizes that on Aug. 19, he becomes a bit player in Mike Tyson’s drama. “Tyson could fight Bozo the Clown and people would pay $$9.95 to see it,” says Steve Farhood, editor of The Ring magazine. But boxing today is a gigantic circus in which 45-year-olds win championships and the biggest name in the game is fighting after three years in prison. And just as under the big top, sometimes it’s the clowns who deliver the goods and steal the show.
