After the Evander win over Mercer, my winnings since March stood at about $32,500. With my birthday coming on May 28, 1995, I decided to go shopping for a TV with a bigger screen than the 27 inch TV in my bedroom. Figuring I could find a nice 35 inch television, I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into Sears, and saw how great the latest 46 inch projection TV’s on display looked. With no hesitation at all, I found the prettiest saleswoman, and told her exactly what I wanted. After paying the $1,800 or so, I was told it would be delivered on June 10, fine by me. I had already painted the room my favorite shade of blue, and my dad had laid the best grade of padding and carpet I could buy. After buying a new recliner, and putting up new vertical blinds, the TV was the finishing touch to my new room.
When the television arrived, I was shocked how great it looked at home. The first thing I did was pop Rambo III in my VCR, and hearing the bullets sounded like they were flying across my room. Tommy Morrison was fighting Razor Ruddock on pay-per-view that night, and my brother came over to see it live. It was like having my own closed circuit theatre at home, and later I even bought speakers to make the sound even better. When I was in Vegas for the Holyfield fight, I put $200 on Tommy to defeat Ruddock, with a win netting me $100. With Tommy’s chin, that’s all I was willing to risk, and figured collecting a $300 ticket the next Saturday night, would be a nice little perk.
As far as the fight itself, it was exciting. Tommy went down in the opening round, but got up and fought well. After being hurt again in the sixth, , Morrison dropped Ruddock with a whistling left hook of his own. He followed that up with a fifteen punch combination that forced Ruddock to the ropes, and caused referee Ron Lipton to call a halt to the bout. Tommy had his victory, and I had $300 waiting for me the next weekend.
My next trip would be on Saturday June 17, to see Riddick Bowe vs. Gonzalez live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. My plans were to put $30.000 on a straight Bowe win, one step closer to my goal of digging myself out of debt by doing something I loved, and knew about.
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