McNeeley Makes Dash With the Cash : Boxing: Opponent plays role to earn $540,000, agrees with his corner’s decision to stop fight.

New day, new poem.

“I’m Peter McNeeley, from Medfield, Mass.; you watched me Saturday night, when I made off with the cash.”

At least that’s what a lot of people are thinking.

The man who was supposed to be served up for Mike Tyson’s comeback didn’t give the former champion the full satisfaction.

Was that brilliant or what?

Fabulous or fraud?

Peter McNeeley was going to lose anyway, right? In the first round, right? The check had been cut.

Why get hurt?

Many would suggest that was the motivation behind Saturday night’s debacle at the MGM Grand Garden.

And in boxing, you can only shrug your shoulders and wonder.

Peter McNeeley went through the motions, trotted into the ring with his green-hooded robe, smirked at Tyson when referee Mills Lane gave his instructions, and stormed Tyson like a bull at the opening bell.

Then it turned weird.

After McNeeley went down for the second time, midway through the round, his trainer, Vinny Vecchione, threw himself into the ring--a human white towel--and called off the fight.

No one seemed more surprised than McNeeley, who did not appear in imminent danger.

The fight was over, at 1:29 of the round. It was ruled a disqualification, and boxing was sporting another black eye.

Marc Ratner, head of the Nevada State Commission, said McNeeley’s purse would be paid but that he was holding Vecchione’s purse--$179,820--until further review of the film.

“I think we owe it to the world to check everything out,” Ratner said.

Right after the fight, “Hurricane,” as McNeeley is known, blew out of the arena to the taunts of patrons who paid up to $1,500 per seat expecting to see Tyson unleash the pent-up fury after a four-year layoff from the ring and three-year prison sentence.

“Seven-hundred grand for that?” one fan screamed at McNeeley, referring to his total purse as the fighter passed on his way to oblivion.

But “Hurricane” was gone.

Later, in his post-fight press conference, McNeeley demanded order from hangers-on who slipped into the media room to shout taunts of derision at the loser.

McNeeley screamed above the roar.

“The second knockdown, as the film will show, I was shaky,” said McNeeley, who earned $540,000 from the fight. “I slipped on the rope, twisted part of my knee.”

At this point he was interrupted by more boos.

“Yeah, yeah,” McNeeley said. “See the film!! Look at the film! My knee buckled. My knee buckled, without even getting hit. Look at the film!

“I did my best. I came here to fight. I walked the walk. He came back and he beat me, that’s all there is to it. That’s it, and that’s that.”

McNeeley said he agreed with his corner’s decision to stop the fight, claiming he didn’t know what hit him when Tyson dropped the second time.

Someone told McNeeley it was an uppercut.

“It was so quick I didn’t even know that,” McNeeley said. “I didn’t even know what the hell hit me.”

Vecchione said he was only protecting his fighter, to perhaps prevent another tragedy in boxing this year. “I remember people like Jimmy Garcia and Gerald McClelland,” Vecchione said.

Garcia, a junior-lightweight, died of brain injuries sustained in a May 6 fight against Gabriel Ruelas at Caesars Palace. McClelland is still recovering from injuries he suffered against Nigel Benn.

“The important thing is this kid is 26 years old,” Vecchione said of McNeeley. “He did come to fight, he gave me 100% effort. If I made a judgment, I have to live with that judgment. As far as I’m concerned, I did the right thing by my fighter.”

But many would have preferred an effort similar to the one Peter’s father, Tom, gave Floyd Patterson in their 1961 fight.

Tom McNeeley was knocked down 10 times before being counted out against Patterson.

Before Saturday’s fight, Tom gave his son a kiss on the cheek before he entered the ring.

Afterward, Tom McNeeley hugged his son, appearing only to care that his son has survived.