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Holyfield lands a couple of jabs. "Oh!" goes the play-by-play guy, "McDonagh just being punished."
"Turn the fucking volume down," Seamus spits out. "These assholes know nothing about boxing. Ferdie Pacheco [one of the announcers], what a fucking asshole. Never fought a boxing match in his life. My sister'd beat the shit out of him. My mother'd beat the shit out of him." Susie pokes her head in. She asks Seamus a question, lingers and watches the screen for a second, then shuts the door.
Round over.
The camera cuts to McDonagh, blinking in his corner. Tommy Gallagher's bald head pops through the ropes. "Gotta punch, Seamus," he says. "You gotta punch, now let's go. Punch, don't stan' dere. Move, punch, move, punch."
Third round. A couple of hard rights from Holyfield, two consecutive uppercut-hook combinations from McDonagh. The fans get a little louder. Seamus perks up in his chair. There's a flurry with a half-minute left.
"Oh!" goes the play-by-play guy, "McDonagh showing a lot of heart." The bell sounds.
"Here's the round," Seamus says. "The fourth round."
Holyfield lands two hard rights in quick succession, and McDonagh starts to crouch and backtrack, like he soiled his pants. Seamus sits with the remote in his right hand. It's aimed at the TV. He starts to squirm, shift around, bob his head.
Holyfield bears down on McDonagh: a body blow, an uppercut to the face. They both throw left hooks and their arms lock at the elbows. McDonagh rallies with a quick right -- that's the photo, though it barely registers -- and Holyfield's answer misses.
Then the two left hooks. Holyfield's is a fraction quicker. It lands squarely on the jaw.
McDonagh goes limp. He falls backward, his punch still arcing through the air, now just an echo of Holyfield's. He collapses between the ropes and thuds against the canvas. The referee is counting. He rolls over, hauls himself up against the ropes. The count hits eight. The ref starts waving and shaking his head. "It's all over," an announcer says. "Here in the fourth round, Evander Holyfield has knocked out Seamus McDonagh."
"Not knocked out," the contender says flatly. "TKO."
The National Automobile Dealers Association hits town in early February for a massive, noisy convention at Moscone, bringing just about every wingtip in the industry to McDonagh's stand. Saturday's a mess, the busiest day he's ever worked, so hectic that he says he hardly even thinks about the poster next to his stand:
AutoVantage & Edmunds.com
present
Evander Holyfield
Booth 3201
South Hall
Holyfield's big, bald head glistens in the photo. He's scheduled to spend a couple of hours Sunday shaking hands at the booth. "Nice picture, isn't it?" McDonagh says. He thinks he'll stop by, maybe say hello. He seems fine, if a little quiet, and he even tells a few people -- probably more than usual -- about the fight. At one point, a fat, ruddy guy in a loud yellow shirt (alligator loafers) climbs down from the stand after a shine. He's smiling.
"Fantastic, boss," he says, thumbing $12 out of his wallet. "OK, boss. I gotta show you a picture 'fore I leave." He takes out a Polaroid. In it, he's grinning just inches from Dolly Parton's cleavage. (She's apparently at a booth somewhere.) "Biiiiig ol' titties, man," he explains. "Just like you like 'em."
McDonagh smiles. "And I'll show you a picture," he says, with a nod to the poster on the wall.
The next morning, he's feeling awful. He's nervous, stressed out -- more fucked up, he says, than he was on the morning of June 1, 1990. He's worried about seeing Holyfield again. What if he doesn't recognize McDonagh, an old foe from a fight that didn't last 20 minutes? Plus, he's dog-tired from the previous day, and he's bickering with Susie. "Felt like I was gonna have a heart attack," McDonagh says, and it's only 7:20 a.m. He catalogs his fears, meditates, and that helps a little. By 1 p.m., though, when Holyfield is scheduled to appear, he's fucked up again.
McDonagh, as usual, is wearing a navy Izod shirt, dark slacks, and dirty shoes. He's brought an old envelope with him today. It's stuffed with a wrinkled extra-large T-shirt from the fight -- HOLYFIELD-McDONAGH, it reads in big, block type, below a black-and-white photo of the two boxers cocking their fists. He's also brought his old boxing trading card and the neon-green folder with the 8-by-10 print.
At 1:30, he goes to the bathroom and emerges with wet hair. He sits on the gray carpet and slides up against the wall. "Not nervous," he explains. "I just have fear." He folds a sheet of paper, and in a jagged, rolling cursive begins to take inventory. By 1:45, he's filled the page. He hops up, and skitters off to a concession stand. "He's gonna do what's honest for him," Susie says. "He may not go over there."
McDonagh returns with an orange juice. He decides he's ready, finally, and off he goes, Susie at his side, OJ in one hand, the envelope in the other, down the gray carpet, through the used-car salesmen and their shiny shoes, across to the other end of the convention center. A security guard nods, and they duck into the South Hall, padding along the soft green carpet, to Booth 3201.
And there he is: Holyfield, in a neat blue suit, a tie, and big alligator shoes, standing uncomfortably on a crescent-shaped stage. He's shaking hands and posing for photos. His bald head gleams. He looks smaller than he should. A pair of autographed boxing gloves sits in a glass case.
"This is Seamus McDonagh," Susie says to a smooth, skinny guy named Bob, who handles marketing for Edmunds.com and who's chatting with a few colleagues.
