At promptly 7:45 p.m., HBO’s broadcasting team of Bob Papa, Larry Merchant and Roy Jones stood outside the ring to pre-record some segments for the live broadcast of Boxing After Dark, which was scheduled to begin in one hour.
That’s when Ryan Coyne and his team entered the arena, and all the voiceover work came to halt.
Accompanied by his corner men and four individuals waving Irish flags, Coyne crossed himself, climbed up the steps to the ring, and then turned to raise his gloves and acknowledge a collection of green-shirted supporters near his corner as the 7,000 in attendance gave the Irish Outlaw a thunderous ovation.
Waiting for him in the squared circle was Don King and a fit, muscular 38-year-old late sub from Parkersburg, W.V., who hadn’t fought in nearly four years, named David McNemar.
“So can this Ryan Coyne guy fight?” I’d asked a writer from Fox Sports Midwest, just before the group paraded toward the ring. “Based on his record (six knockouts in 16 fights), he doesn’t seem to have heavy hands. He’s not very tall. I saw Guillermo Jones fight in Chicago a couple of years ago, and I get the impression he would’ve destroyed Coyne.”
“For the sake of boxing in Missouri, I hope he can,” the writer replied. Meanwhile, a talkative Missouri native who runs his own boxing site couldn’t contain his excitement.
“Don’t blink, this is going to be a short one,” he said, before peaking over at the HBO announcers. “Look at Roy,” he added. “He’s checking out Ryan. I could see him challenging Ryan. Roy Jones vs. Ryan Coyne in St. Louis … people would come see that.”
But all the talk of future fights with Roy Jones ended when McNemar didn’t fall down. In fact, he fought amazingly well for someone his age with so little experience.
Coyne, boxing out of the southpaw stance, slowly advanced behind his jab, while McNemar circled from a safe distance and occasionally moved in to land combinations of his own. McNemar was most effective leading with the left hook, followed up by a straight right to the face or to the pit of Coyne’s stomach. Meanwhile, Coyne pawed with the jab and tried to get close to score with body shots.
By the middle rounds, Coyne’s eyes began to bust up and McNemar’s confidence soared. In the eleventh, Coyne landed a few body shots that seemed to take all the fight out of McNemar. From that point on, Parkersburg’s only undefeated cruiserweight seemed content to throw a few punches and clinch, believing he’d already done enough to win.
As it turned out, he needed to win those the last two rounds just to secure a draw.
The final scores were 115-113 on one judge’s card and 116-112 on two others, all for Coyne. When the announcement was read, many in the arena began booing, having been won over by McNemar’s surprising effort.
“How can they be booing Ryan,” asked the writer who’d predicted a Coyne-Jones fight down the road. “Unbelievable. I’m sure Ryan just wasn’t able to study this guy on tape. There wasn’t time.”
Excuses aside, it was hardly the performance one would expect from a world title contender. Regardless, in his dressing room afterward, his eyes cut and bruised, Coyne stuck to the script.
“There was a reason David McNemar had never been defeated before tonight,” Coyne said. “He’s a tough guy. But I will be in my first world championship fight very soon.”
McNemar, on the other hand, was inconsolable. When the verdict was read, he rushed down the steps out of the ring and pushed through the barricade, his jaw quivering uncontrollably as he tried to hold his emotions in check. Alan Hopper, Don King’s public relations man, trailed behind McNemar and then came back moments later to tell reporters that the fighter had collapsed in his dressing room backstage, face down, weeping uncontrollably. Once McNemar was able to speak, he vented his rage.
“That f*cking p*ssy!” McNemar raged. “Tell me how I lost that fight? I haven’t fought since 2007! I came to St. Louis on six days’ notice. I sparred twice. And I won that fight!” (View full fight.)
Tavoris Cloud: The New Marvin Hagler
While this drama was unfolding in the dressing room area, the Boxing After Dark cameras began rolling. Heavyweights Bermane Stiverne and Ray Austin took their places in the ring for the night’s first televised bout so they could begin fighting the moment the B.A.D. team was finished setting the scene for viewers.
The apologist for Spinks and Coyne beside me clearly wasn’t a fan of the heavyweights and loudly cracked to all around: “If you have some writing to do, now is the time.”
However, the moment the bell rang, it was obvious what we were watching were fighters a full level or two above those who had come before.
Fighting for a shot at the heavyweight championship and the big payday that comes along with it, Stiverne and Austin laid it all on the line. In the second round, Stiverne staggered Austin with a blistering combination. In the third, Austin regained momentum and then shouldered Stiverne on the way back to his corner, as if to emphasize the point.
In the tenth, Stiverne, who was behind on the scorecards, finally uncorked a crushing right hand that put Austin down and seemingly out. Austin rose at the count of ten and wanted to continue, but he seemed unsteady and the referee waived off the fight. (View the full fight.)
It was a sudden, dramatic win – something sorely lacking during the prelims. And it re-energized the crowd.
As I made my way back to the dressing room to try to get a few words with Austin, the big man literally ran past me as Yusaf Mack and his team prepared to enter the ring to challenge IBF Light Heavyweight king Tavoris Cloud. The bouts were coming quicker now, with less time between fights.
Mack, from Philadelphia, had promised to bring the title home so he and his close friend Bernard Hopkins, who holds the WBC crown, could reign together. And the veteran light heavy performed admirably in the early rounds, out-boxing Cloud in a couple of frames.
Unfortunately for Mack, he may have been in there with this generation’s Marvin Hagler. Cloud stepped up the pace in the middle rounds, breaking down Mack with a relentless body attack.
To my right, sitting at ringside, was Cloud’s mother, Emma Smith, who I mentioned in my prefight article about her son. At the close of the eighth round, Cloud cornered Mack and landed a crushing left hook, followed by a series of combinations to the head and body that sent Mack to the deck and nearly out of the ring. When Referee Robert Byrd stopped the bout, I turned to see Cloud’s mother smile and say, “That’s my baby.” (View full fight.)
HBO commentator Larry Merchant was equally impressed.
“As we speak, it is thundering and cloudy outside,” Merchant explained. “But I regard Tavoris Cloud as a bit of sunshine in boxing today. Because he doesn’t try to outwit you, he tries to outhit you.”
With this performance, Cloud graduated to main event status. Fights with the elite of the division were on the horizon. He wouldn’t be appearing on any more Devon Alexander undercards in Missouri.
The only question waiting to be answered was would this be the last main event Alexander appeared in for a while?
Devon Alexander vs. Lucas Matthysse: The Great Missouri Heist
As the crowd began to file out of The Family Arena, exhausted after Devon Alexander’s controversial 10-round split-decision over Argentina’s Lucas Matthysse, the announcers who called the fight for the Cadena Tres television network in Mexico ushered Matthysse over to their position in press row.
While he waited to go on camera, Matthysse calmly signed autographs for fans, looking none the worse for wear after having given Alexander the beating of his life.
“That was you’re fight bro,” one young fan stated, holding out a pen.
“That was your fight buddy, it was all you,” said an intoxicated gentleman beside him. “Get back in there and do it, buddy. Good fight.”
“We all know what happened,” another added. “We all know.”
What happened was an excellent style matchup pitting a smooth but light-hitting boxer against a sometimes awkward but devastating one-punch knockout artist.
Before the fight, Matthysse, who lost for just the second time in 30 pro fights, stated he would not try to win a decision in Alexander’s hometown. Instead, he would focus solely on scoring a knockout. And while attempting to stop Alexander, Matthysse also appeared to outpoint him.
Matthysse floored Alexander for the first time in his career to start the fourth, eliciting screams near press row where Alexander’s family was seated.
“Fight Devon fight!” a woman with a high-pitched voice repeated over and over again, pleading with him not to give up as Matthysse pounded him to the head and body.
While Alexander had the edge in the first three frames, the knockdown changed everything. Matthysse poured it on in the second half of the bout, seemingly winning the seventh, eighth and tenth rounds decisively. (View full fight.)
But the two of the three judges disagreed. Judges Carlos Colon and Denny Nelson both gave the tenth round and the fight to Alexander by scores of 96-93 and 95-94 respectively. The third judge Brett Miller scored it 96-93 Matthysse. (View official scorecard.)
Seconds earlier, as thousands of fans rocked back and forth on their feet waiting for the official verdict, the overwhelming sense on the arena floor was that this decision may not only decide the fight, but the fate of boxing in the state for the near future. So when Alexander was named the winner, the building erupted in cheers, both around press row and in it. Yet, through all the joy and the noticeable relief, a steady, low noise rose up from the din. It was, once again, the sound of booing.
Like the young fan said to Matthysse after the bout, “we all know what happened.”
An hour after the last decision was rendered, most of the fighters on the card huddled together near a small area by The Family Arena’s loading dock waiting for the typhoon-like storm outside to ease up.
Someone braved the deep puddles and a stream of lightning that repeatedly lit up the sky like a strobe light, and backed a van into the loading area so people could board. Berman Stiverne and his trainer noticed the van backing in first and called for Matthysse and his team to join them.
Those not in a hurry were the local writers and fans who had made their way to the back of the arena.
Apparently, word got out that Guillermo Jones decided to move on and face his mandatory challenger, so his optional defense against Coyne won’t be happening this year (or possibly next).
Kevin Cunningham, Alexander’s trainer, started telling people that Devon would be moving up to welterweight next time out, possibly against light-hitting Paul Malignaggi. But there is no conceivable way Malignaggi consents and travels to St. Louis for that one, considering a distance fight is all but guaranteed.
And Cory Spinks simply isn’t a factor at junior middleweight or middleweight. Not anymore.
So as pockets of fans and writers stood around waiting for a break in the rain, most couldn’t help but stare at the fighters who helped bring the sport of boxing back to Missouri.
And a few had to be wondering if any of them would ever be back.
