You could hardly blame Kevin McBride for feeling as if he'd taken a sucker-punch to the solar plexus.
The 31-year-old heavyweight from Clones had already packed his bags in anticipation of opening his training camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains this morning, but late last Friday Mike Tyson's adviser Shelly Finkel attempted a last-minute bait-and-switch that would have reduced McBride's $500,000 purse by half.
Promoter Rich Cappiello elected to call what he assumed was a bluff on Finkel's part, and by Saturday morning McBride was out and England's Danny Williams in as Tyson's opponent for his July 30th fight in Louisville.
"We were supposed to sign the deal Friday, but that morning Shelly phoned to say he had somebody else who was willing to fight for less money," said Cappiello. "I thought we already had a deal, so I said 'No way'. He said he'd get back to me, and when he did it was to say that they'd decided to go with Danny Williams."
Finkel confirmed that the switch in opponents was "all about money".
Williams is 31-3 (McBride is 31-4-1), but his ledger includes a 1999 loss to the immortal Julius Francis, who was easily dispatched by Tyson in two rounds a year later. More crucially, instead of the half-million dollars McBride had been promised, Williams was willing to fight for $250,000.
"For months we had a deal, then the day we're supposed to sign the contract he pulls this," complained Cappiello. "I wasn't going to go back to Kevin and tell him he was only getting half the purse we'd negotiated."