A short while before Jake Paul and Mike Tyson entered the ring, BN’s Matt Bozeat caught up with Kevin McBride, aka the ‘Clones Colossus’, for a chat on life, the future and the biggest win of his career.
AS our interview wound down, ‘Big Kevin’ reminded me of the challenge he wanted to issue through the pages of Boxing News.
“Don’t forget to throw my name in the hat for the winner,” he said, cheerily.
“If Tyson wins, ‘Big Kevin’ will give him a rematch and if Jake Paul wins it will be: ‘He has beaten Mike Tyson, but can he beat ‘Big Kevin?’”
If ‘Big Kevin’ McBride’s words read as desperate, they shouldn’t.
He ended most sentences in our 45-minute interview with a good-natured chuckle and insisted more than once that: “Boxing is the best sport in the world.”
He added: “I will love boxing until the day I die. Boxing gives people hope. It’s a beautiful sport.”
McBride doesn’t see anything ugly in YouTube celebrity and boxing novice Jake Paul fighting 58-year-old Mike Tyson in Arlington, Texas on November 15, more than 19 years after he appeared to send Tyson into retirement.
“It’s great to see these guys throwing away their walking sticks and getting in the ring!” said the good-natured McBride, now 51 years old.
“Is it a real fight? I don’t really know.
“The doctors will be there and if you’re in shape and all the right people are there it’s fine.
“You could be walking down the road and get hit by a bus.
“I don’t think Mike Tyson or Jake Paul needs the money. I think Mike Tyson needs some excitement in his life.
“Tyson always had unbelievable power and even though he’s 58, he will still be very dangerous.
“I saw him on the internet and he looks like he’s in shape and the last thing you lose is your power.
“He may not be as fast or have the stamina, but I think if the fight isn’t rigged, Mike Tyson will pull it off. I’m not saying Jake Paul has no chance, but I don’t know if he realises the power Tyson has.”
Evander Holyfield discovered the folly of fighting at 58 when former UFC fighter Victor Belfort stopped him inside a round three years ago.
“Holyfield couldn’t put it together when that kid put it on him,” said McBride, “but Tyson is a different person. Let’s see if Tyson shows up.
“I will be watching for sure. It’s exciting.”
McBride also has no issue with Tyson and Paul earning millions while he works paving the roads around Boston, Massachusetts, where every day or so, someone recognises him as “the Irish guy who beat Mike Tyson.”
He said: “Some people don’t believe I beat Tyson. They go away, look it up and then come back and ask for a picture.
“Paving is hard, but it’s not that hard. You have to survive. I have a wife and two kids.”
And McBride didn’t earn fortunes for fighting.
He was paid only $150,000 for beating Tyson at the MCI Centre in Washington, DC, in June, 2005.
“Growing up I idolised Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali and then I met them both on the same night,” he said.
“I beat a legend and then Ali got in the ring and started throwing punches at me.
“He was there because his daughter [Laila] was boxing on the show and he was throwing punches at me and saying: ‘You’re the latest, but I’m ‘The Greatest.’
“Money can’t buy that. I would have fought him [Tyson] for free, just for the buzz, the feeling.
“Afterwards, a reporter asked me what I thought to myself before the first bell rang.
“I said: ‘Imagine being in the ring opposite Mike Tyson in front of 20,000 people.
“I was thinking: ‘What the f*** have I got myself into!’
“Once you throw that first punch, it’s the same as any other fight.”
There was a difference between fighting Tyson and the other 46 fights in his 35-10-1 pro career that started with a draw against Gary Charlton in Barking in December, 1992.
“I have been hit by a lot of good heavyweights,” said McBride, who stands 6ft 6ins tall and was known as ‘The Clones Colossus.’
“I was knocked out a few times, but the punches I really felt were Tyson’s.
“He would hit me on one side of my body and the other side of my body would shake!
“He hit me so hard in the sixth round that I heard leprechauns playing drums in my head!”
Tyson didn’t just use his fists.
“He tried to bite my nipple off,” said McBride. “I was lucky he had his gum shield in or I would have been the Irishman with one nipple.
“He gave me a nice head butt too [the wound would later need 15 stitches to repair].
“I had Goody [Petronelli] who was a medic in the Navy in my corner and he looked after it.
“Tyson wants to win at all costs.”
McBride-Tyson had been mooted for a while before it finally happened.
“There was talk of it happening before he fought Peter McNeeley [in August, 1996, in Tyson’s first fight after his release from prison],” said McBride.
“But Frank Maloney [McBride’s promoter at the time] thought I would get killed!
“I was offered the fight before Danny Williams took it, but people got too greedy.
“I got the fight because I was dangerous, but not too dangerous.”
McBride went into the fight against 38-year-old Tyson with a 32-4-1 record that included 21 wins inside three rounds – and four KO losses.
He did his best to ensure he would be able to take Tyson’s punches.
“I wanted to leave no stone unturned,” said McBride, “so I went to see a hypnotist.
“I was told: ‘Any punches he hits you with, you will smile.’
“I was smiling a lot!
“I knew if I got through the first three or four rounds, I had a shot. I was determined to win. I had that self belief.”
That carried him through the early rounds and, though the referee ruled a slip after an exhausted Tyson landed on seat of his trunks at the end of the sixth, the fight was effectively over.
Tyson didn’t come out for the seventh.
“I was starting to get to him,” said McBride. “I caught him with good uppercuts and could feel the energy sapping from him.”
The win over Tyson led to talk of a world title challenge.
“After I beat Tyson my name was out there for a while,” said McBride, “but then it goes and other names come in the picture.
“I was never a superstar. I was a good journeyman and I had a good night when I fought Mike Tyson!
“It wasn’t a world title fight, but it felt like a world title fight to me.”
McBride was rather more than a journeyman.
He was still a teenager when he represented Ireland at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where Michael Carruth won gold, and Wayne McCullough claimed silver.
“I remember going out running and people saying: ‘There’s no way you will go to the Olympics.’”
McBride did qualify and, at 19 years old, he was beaten in his opening contest in Spain, by Peter Hrivnak, from Czechoslovakia.
He also rubbed shoulders with sporting superstars Larry Bird, part of the American basketball ‘Dream Team,’ and Carl Lewis, the world’s outstanding athlete at the time.
“It’s hard to believe it was 32 years ago,” said McBride.
The 2024 version of McBride is “in better shape than I have been for a long time. I would be ready for anyone in a couple of months.”
More likely, McBride will leave the fighting to his teenage son, Caoimhin.
“He’s 16 and a good size,” said McBride. “He was a national swimmer. I didn’t force him to box. He has had a few smokers and spars.”
McBride clearly won’t dissuade Caoimhin from a career in a sport that he says gave him, “my wee claim to fame.
“It’s hard to believe it was 19 years ago [that I beat Tyson] and he is still in the picture.
“I don’t think the rematch will happen, but nobody thought I would fight him the first time and who knows? People in Saudi Arabia might want to see it. If it happened again, I would want a few bucks for it.”
