Butterbean, Hurricane Are Boxing’s Biggest Hits

Butterbean is a boxer for the ages; The Hurricane is the answer to a trivia question about Mike Tyson.

“Old ladies like to watch me,” said 300-pound-plus Eric Esch, who as Butterbean has become a boxing cult figure. “They say, ‘You’re not mean.”’

Autograph-seeking kids also like Butterbean, who was treated as a celebrity during a visit to the New York Mets locker room last week.

“I’m having as much fun with it as I can,” said the 33-year-old former tough-man contestant billed as King of the Four-Rounders.

His next four-rounder is June 26 in Las Vegas against Peter “Hurricane’ McNeeley, who’s a different type of celebrity.

People throw punches and pizza at McNeeley. At least they did for a while after his one-round fiasco against Tyson.

“I had trouble in bars; I got sucker-punched three of four times,” said McNeeley, Tyson’s first opponent after the former heavyweight champ was released from prison in 1995.

McNeeley was knocked down three times in 89 seconds and was disqualified when manager Vinny Vecchione jumped into the ring and stopped the fight.

“I don’t have any regrets and I want to fight him again,” McNeeley said.

Although he became an object of derision, he maintains, “It was the greatest night of my life.”

Butterbean wouldn’t mind a night like that.

“A (George) Foreman fight or a Tyson fight, I’d jump at,” he said.

What promoter Bob Arum talks about is a rematch between Butterbean and McNeeley, if they put on a good show in their bout on a championship doubleheader card at Mandalay Bay. McNeeley will get $25,000 and Butterbean will get $60,000 for their part in the pay-per-view show.

“The purses were very minuscule,” McNeeley said of most of his paydays since he earned $540,000 for fighting Tyson.

Butterbean would not say what he has earned in a 46-bout career of almost exclusively four-round bouts that began in 1994. But when Arum was asked if he thought the boxer’s purses totaled $1 million, he replied, “He’s honing in on it.”

Butterbean is a success story in an age when the lines between competition and entertainment have blurred, when athletes often are seen and often see themselves as actors.

“He’s become a real cult figure,” Arum said of the fat boxer with the shaven head and “ring-sized” waistline.

Said Butterbean: “Right now my waistline is 44, but it’s been up to 58.”

McNeeley’s story is as old as boxing. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Tom, who was knocked out by Floyd Patterson in a heavyweight title bid in 1961.

The younger McNeeley became a fighter below world-class level who was tapped as the opponent for a star before sinking back to the ranks of the forgotten, of the ignored. There were other problems, too.

“I sunk even deeper into addictive substances,” McNeeley said. “A woman claimed I beat her up. I was in California at the time, and the case was thrown out. My mom came down with cancer.”

Looking back to the night of Aug. 19, 1995, McNeeley praises Vecchione for stopping the Tyson fight.

“He saw my legs were gone. Vinny Vecchione knows me better than I know myself,” he said.

It seems, however, that a lot of fans were angered that Tyson was deprived of a legitimate knockout, that McNeeley wasn’t carried out on his “shield.” In McNeeley’s next fight on Oct. 27, 1995, which he won before “hometown” fans in Boston, he was booed and showered with pieces of pizza.

In September 1996, McNeeley walked away from boxing. He cleaned up his act, got back into the gym in July 1997 and fought in December of that year.

“It took me 11 months to get the demons behind me,” the 30-year-old McNeeley said, adding that he is clean and living in Medfield, Mass., with his grandmother and mother, who has recovered and is working again.

As for Butterbean, his boxing career began when Art Dore, who puts together tough-man contests, called Arum to say he had a guy who was very popular and wanted to be a pro fighter.

“He asked would I be interested in promoting him,” Arum recalled. “We said, ‘No,’ but we would throw him on a card and see what happened.

“The fans went crazy. I came up with the idea to make him ‘King of the Four-Rounders’ and got (IBA commissioner) Dean Chance to give him a belt” as champion of the nonexistent super heavyweight division.

Asked why he wanted to make Butterbean strictly a four-round fighter, Arum said, “I didn’t want to see anybody having a heart attack in the ring.”

It’s worked to Butterbean’s advantage that there’s a lot of pro wrestling promotion involved in boxing these days. In fact, he’s appeared several times with the WWF.

On one occasion, it was boxer vs. wrestler, and, Butterbean said, “I knocked him out in 29 seconds. It was beautiful knockout.”

Butterbean, who lives in Jasper, Ala., with his wife and three children, said of his success: “Five years ago I was working in a mobile-home plant. This is a lot better than mobile homes.”

So popular has the big man become that, he said, “I have appearances booked for a year.”

He keeps busy wrestling, talking at schools for free, and boxing at charity events and on small shows at which he is often in the featured match, even though it’s a four-rounder.

After boxing in a charity show last year in Washington, Butterbean took off his trunks--”after I put on a big shirt”--and auctioned them off for $5,500.”

Recently, he boxed in Tunica, Miss., before 900 fans, because that’s all that could get in. “They were scalping tickets,” he said. “They’re begging me to come back.”

Butterbean’s popularity is what caused Vecchione to keep pestering Arum until he got a fight for McNeeley, who was stopped in the third round by Brian Nielsen in Denmark on Feb. 12 in a fight he took on five days’ notice.

It seems hardly anybody knows about that fight outside of McNeeley’s family.

“This is the most publicized fight I’ve had since I fought Tyson,” McNeeley said of the bout against Butterbean. “(A win) will at least get me enough media attention to get some kind of fight.”

Fight, in this case, translates into payday.

“Let’s be honest,” McNeeley added. “My chances are better of winning this fight than of beating Tyson.”

McNeeley’s record is 45-4, 34 knockouts. Butterbean’s record 44-1-1, 33 knockouts, but records are not what he’s about.

For him, the show will go on . . . for now.