If Looks Could Kill, Mike Tyson Would've Murdered Me For 'Cocoon Of Horror' Boast
Idle remarks by Hurricane Peter McNeeley blamed on Michael Marley
If looks could kill, I would have been found lying on the marble lobby floor of the plush Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and the murderer would’ve been Michael Gerard Tyson.
It was 1995 and I was with the Don King Traveling Circus, on the road to hype “He’s Back,” Tyson now being uncaged after a rape conviction and prison term in Indiana.
King matchmaker Big Al Braverman lined up completely unqualified and less than a tomato can Irish Peter McNeeley to be the tackling dummy who would keel over in the opening round.
Cosmetically, McNeeley filled the bill. His grandfather fought in the 1928 Olympics and his father had been used as a safe opponent for Tyson tutor Cus D’Amato’s glass jawed world champion Floyd Patterson.
Heck, Irish Tom even decked the fighter Muhammad Ali called “The Rabbit.” The script was not blemished as Patterson floored Tom seven times in Toronto in 1961.
I thought nothing of it when I chatted with Peter, who grandly called himself “Hurricane Peter,” and his “dese and dose” manager and trainer Vinny Vecchione, the night before the swanky presser paid for by Showtime. I knew Irish Tom since I was a teenager in Boston, getting my start in the boxing world so it was natural for Tyson’s chosen foe to ask me how he should comport himself in front of the media.
“Have some fun but don’t rattle Mike’s cage, be mildly respectful but say you will win, shock the world, the usual rap,” I told Peter.
I never expected what a nervous McNeeley wound up proclaiming as I stood on the dais.
Rattle the mercurial Tyson’s cage? McNeeley took a verbal hacksaw and sawed it open. Unleash The Beast and like that.
“When I get you…into my Cocoon of Horror…” McNeeley spouted.
He added something about Tyson “winding up singing with our friends down at the House Of Blues.”
I didn’t know whether to cringe or laugh so I did both.
Tyson was visibly annoyed, and he stared, the Thousand Yard Stare, his eyes like burning lasers.
It was clear DKP’s Golden Goose believed I had stage managed bit player McNeeley’s audacity.
I steered clear of Tyson for a week as he grew even more sullen.
Network publicist Steve Brener kept bugging me to get Iron Mike to do a one on one with good guy Nick Charles of CNN.
I brought this to King’s attention, but he was keener on getting someone to rush over to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles for his lunch order. Tyson refused CNN, meaning Charles flew back to Atlanta emptyhanded.
King directed LA “character” Charles Dudley to get the Roscoe’s repast forthwith. Tyson said bleep Roscoe’s and bleep Charley D. King then turned on Charley D and told him to leave the premises pronto.
Tyson kept it moving and I went to the lobby. Charley D wanted to know if he should revisit King and get the food money.
Picking up the champ’s theme, I said bleep the chicken and double bleep the waffles.
King got his chicken and waffles and McNeeley got his beating.
Hurricane Peter was a mild breeze when the opening bell rang.
And the circus moved on.