Conor McGregor vs Khabib not the first good fight to go bad

The Motorola 3200 was eight inches long, weighed nearly two pounds and was an ideal tool to bludgeon the Fanman unconscious in Las Vegas back in 1993.

Poor James Miller had gracefully guided his paramotor, a lightweight parachute and spinning-blade contraption, through the glorious neon-lit night, his eerie silhouette illuminated by the golden glow from the Mirage at one point as he floated to earth. It was a peaceful night and Miller, circling like a wary eagle high above the lights of Caesars Palace, guided the mechanical bird down, falling strangely fast until he landed in round seven of a world heavyweight title fight, his two feet over the top rope, his chute in the ring lights and his life in jeopardy as every thug at ringside responded to his invasion.

In the ring Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe stopped hitting each other and were soon wrapped in blankets and left to gently steam during the 21-minute break; outside the ring the assault on Miller continued.

When Miller’s tiny parachute became entangled in the ring lights he was quickly jerked back to about row three, came to rest in the laps of startled punters and was then knocked unconscious by a man in a black hat wielding the Motorola - the phone was taken into evidence, it’s dimensions mentioned in an official report.

At ringside, as Miller crashed in, a man called Rock Newman, Bowe’s manger, threw his considerable bulk across the startled body of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, believing the disruption was an assassination attempt. Bowe’s pregnant wife, Judy, fainted and slipped to the floor in the thick of it. Miller was still getting a beating. The dismantled wreckage of the crashed paramotor was carried from the carnage at ringside, the boxers stripped from their soaking blankets and the fight continued. Holyfield won on points, revenge for a loss earlier in the year and the pair would fight an epic third fight.

Miller vanished into the night, his concussion cleared and the following year he landed on the roof at Buckingham Palace, where he was lucky not to be shot. He was thrown out of Britain with a fine, paid for by the newspaper behind the Palace stunt. It is claimed he dropped his trousers and was naked on the Palace roof, his dignity concealed by green paint for a long forgotten ad campaign.

Two years after the Fanman fight, Bowe was involved in a nasty incident at a press conference when his Cuban opponent threw a glass at him. It exploded, some hit me, and the scramble for calm was vicious; Bowe stopped Jorge Luis Gonzalez a few months later.

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The following year at Madison Square Garden, Bowe’s foul-filled fight with Andrew Golota was stopped in the seventh round and Golota was disqualified. Bowe’s entourage, including Newman, swarmed through the ropes and punches were thrown; Golota’s trainer, Lou Duva, who was 74 was swinging his own fists wildly in defence before he was knocked out. Duva was then carried from the ring on a stretcher with a suspected heat attack. He was fine. A man in a black hat hit Golota with a walkie-talkie, leaving a wound that needed stitches.

Golota never apologised for his dozens of intentional low blows. “I do what I need to win,” he offered. The rival fans started fighting in wave after wave of skirmishes, which went on for over 20-minutes before the riot police had coshed enough sense into the brawlers.

Newman was fined 250,000 dollars and suspended for a year by the New York athletic commissioners: a total of 16 people were arrested, dozens injured in the fights that took place all over the ancient venue. In the debris at midnight, chairs smashed, the floor littered with clothing and squashed beer cups, the mayor of New York, Rudi Giuliani, wandered through, like a politician at the scene of a terrible natural disaster, and promised to bring the “criminals to justice.” It was not meant to be funny, but it was hard not to chuckle as witless Rudi put on his best stoic face to survey the mess caused by Golota’s fists relentlessly pummelling Bowe’s groin. A few months later, they fought again and Golota was disqualified again. The police in Atlantic City that night made sure there was no trouble.

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The Fanman and the Bowe and Holyfield fight was the first thing in my mind when I saw the aftermath of Conor McGregor against Khabib Nurmagomedov on Saturday night in Las Vegas. The truly appalling scenes delivered the same type of shock, the utter disbelief. It was impossible to look away from either.

Bowe and Miller never, to my knowledge, became friends and that is a pity because Miller needed a friend. In late 2002, with his partner heavily pregnant, Miller walked off into the wild at Peninsula Kenai in Alaska; Miller had a bad heart, was skint and desperate as he trudged through the snow, his paramotor harness in his backpack. Six months later, after his son had been born, bear hunters out foraging in the thaw discovered Miller hanging from the harness. The Fanman was dead.