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Still, he's not satisfied. He looks for other work. Every few weeks, McDonagh heads to Los Angeles and trolls for small parts in commercials (a friend's girlfriend got him into the business; he now has a casting agent). He was an extra in the Visa spot with Charlie and Martin Sheen, though his scene hasn't been used, and he thinks his arm made a cameo in a recent Red Lobster ad.
Neil Ferrara, McDonagh's old trainer, recently suggested he return to New York and work with a few fighters, maybe teach them that sledgehammer left. "[I told him] he could be a pretty good trainer," Ferrara says. "He said, 'I'm 40 years old.' ... But it's still constructive, what he's doing now. This is a country where you can get knocked down, shovel shit, and still come out on top."
For a while, McDonagh flirted with the idea of opening up a boxing gym in his small studio, just around the corner from Susie's apartment. He even got a phone number with the last five digits spelling BOXER. But then he and Susie broke up, and McDonagh moved out of her place and back into his. "So I'm not gonna open a gym," he says. "Never really wanted to do that. I don't even like training people. I have one client. That's all I want."
Indeed, the closest McDonagh gets to his old sport is a once-a-week boxing lesson that lasts an hour and costs $100. His student -- or "client," in his words -- is a 43-year-old fitness buff who works in financial services and would like to eventually fight an amateur bout.
On this Monday, after working the specialty-foods convention, McDonagh and I drive to his client's sparkling home in Cow Hollow. McDonagh is beat, and throughout the 15-minute drive he leans back in the passenger seat and meditates, his bright-blue stocking cap pulled over his head.
The boxing room is a bare converted kitchen. A punching bag hangs from the middle of the ceiling, like a fat sausage. There's a framed photo on the wall of Jack Dempsey's fists. For the next hour, McDonagh shadows his client (who agreed to let me attend only if his name wasn't revealed) around the bag, making sure his stance is good and his jab stays up. He teaches him how to walk backward, in a defensive crouch, and still keep his balance. "Good, good," he says. "Like you soiled your pants."
During a break toward the end of the lesson, he leans in for a better look at Dempsey's fists. It's a close-up, with the fighter's dark knuckles in the middle of the frame.
"Where did you get that?" McDonagh asks.
"My friend," his client explains. He bought it off a Web site.
"I wonder," McDonagh says, "if I could put my Holyfield picture online and sell it."
McDonagh has never seen the video of the Holyfield bout -- he has never wanted to -- but he agrees to watch it one Monday evening at Susie's place. It's a cozy one-bedroom apartment, with hardwood floors and a lot of mirrors. Susie is there, but he won't let her watch the tape with him. He's closed the bedroom door. She's pissed.
For the past 10 minutes, McDonagh has sat in a chair by the bed and taken inventory on a sheet of paper. Now the page is full, and Seamus -- normally shy and gentle -- is explaining how fucking much he hated boxing. "I hated fucking boxing my whole life," McDonagh is saying. "Hated it. I was terrified as a kid to box. Never wanted to fucking fight ever. I was afraid for my fucking life my whole life." It's the intensity, but not the words, of an athlete before a big game; there's still a good bit of boxer in him. "My whole life culminated in this fight we're gonna watch right now," he adds. "And I was terrified. Fucking terrified." He starts the tape, and ring announcer Michael Buffer says, "Let's get ready to rumble."
McDonagh appears immediately. He's the big, pink guy with the green trunks and the snarl, stalking back and forth across the canvas (a trick he cribbed from Sugar Ray Leonard). The ref draws the fighters together, and the camera zeroes in on McDonagh's wide face, a foot from Holyfield's, trying to look mean and nasty. Fugging bastard. "Oh, my God," Seamus says, laughing. Holyfield looks cut, lean, and sleek (both fighters were listed at 205 pounds, with the champ about two inches taller).
The first round is ugly. McDonagh trots out of the corner, lands a left, then another, then another, but a second later he's flat on the canvas after Holyfield tackles him.
"Nerves," Seamus says, blinking and bobbing a little with the action. McDonagh goes after Holyfield again. And a minute later, he's on the floor again (Holyfield had cracked him with a short uppercut), then again (another tackle), then again (a stumble). "OK, I'm OK," Seamus says from his chair. By the end of the first round, McDonagh is waddling around with his gloves up near his chin, doubled over like a guy looking for his contacts. "I did better than I thought I fucking did," he says.
The second round is an improvement. The two swap punches. Holyfield works the jab; McDonagh gets in a few good lefts. "Different class [of] fighters here," one of the announcers says. "One guy is a barroom brawler, and the other guy's a fine, scientific fighter, finely honed, finely conditioned. We're seeing prime Holyfield here."
