THE UNLIKELY HERO
The story of heavyweight Eric Esch. Otherwise known as “Butterbean”
The story of Eric Esch, a ‘400-pound fat kid’ who became a must-see heavyweight attraction thanks to his cartoon-like appearance and genuine punching power. The oft-discussed Mike Tyson showdown never occurred but, as Thomas Gerbasi discovers, that did not stop the bald and bloated ‘Butterbean’ from becoming one of the unlikeliest heroes of his time
THE venues have changed, but Eric Esch still hears the roar of the crowd. Sometimes it’s from the folks piling into his restaurant in Jasper, Alabama,
Mr. Bean’s BBQ; at others, it’s from his grandchildren. So if you ask him, there is nothing to miss from his time as a prizefighter.
“Not really,” said the 52-year-old better known as Butterbean. “I had a lot of fun when I was doing it, but it was time to hang ‘em up and let somebody else that’s younger do it. I’m just retired, hanging out with my grandkids and my family, that’s about it.”
The internet says there are eight of those grandkids, and he confirms it with a laugh, saying, “We’re working on a football team.”
If the Esch family did ultimately produce a starting 11, it wouldn’t be the craziest story you’ve ever heard. That honour goes to granddad Eric, who found a way to be a true original in a world where achieving that feat isn’t a common occurrence. There’s only one Ricky Hatton? Sure, but there’s REALLY only one Butterbean.
“I’m a one of a kind guy,” he said. “Well, not really. There are a lot of me out there; people just don’t put the effort in and do what I did. Anybody can achieve what they want; they just gotta go out there and get it.” Think about it. Considering Esch’s popularity over the course of nearly two decades in the ring, you would assume that some promoter somewhere would look to find someone to emulate “The King of the Four-rounders.” But it’s never happened. There are no 400pound boxers sporting red, white and blue trunks and a clean-shaven head knocking out opponents left and right, drawing the ire of purists while thrilling the ticket-buying public. So how did this happen? “I was a normal, everyday guy that did something a lot of people always just dreamed about doing,” he said. “I just went out and did it. But I did so many different things, from boxing and kickboxing, movies, wrestling. Almost every type of fighting sport, I did.” The veteran of boxing, mixed martial arts and K-1 kickboxing isn’t exaggerating, and he’s got the 126 sanctioned bouts to prove it. Yet it all started with
a dare when some buddies challenged the 23-yearold to enter a Toughman contest. He won that contest and 17 more titles before eventually being “retired” from the circuit.
“Once you get to a certain level and there’s 30 guys signed up to fight in the heavyweight division, you sign up and then all of them drop out except for one or two, it kind of kills the show. So I had to retire from Toughman because nobody wanted to fight.”
Boxing was the next logical step, and after turning pro in 1994 and ultimately signing with Top Rank, Butterbean became a sensation. There were appearances on Oscar De La Hoya and Azumah Nelson undercards, highlight reel knockouts and seemingly endless interviews. And despite the barbs delivered by media members who called Esch and his fellow undercard mate Mia St. John sideshows, the fans didn’t care, even after his 15-0 record turned to 15-1 in 1995 when he was halted by the 1-7-1 Mitchell Rose on the De La Hoya-james Leija undercard at Madison Square Garden.
Following that loss, Esch went a remarkable 48-0-2 over his next 50 bouts. Well, maybe it wasn’t so remarkable given his level of competition. Many had either losing or .500 records, others had just a handful of bouts, and when Mike Tyson victim Peter Mcneeley is your most notable victory, well, enough said.
But winning is winning, and Esch did more than his share. And with his size and knockout power, there was a section of the boxing population that wondered how he would fare against actual heavyweight contenders. Esch wondered too, occasionally having conversations with Top Rank’s Arum about such bouts.
“There was a lot of times I talked to him about it, and he put us in what fights he could and I made as much as I could,” he said. “A lot of times I’m fighting four rounds and the main event is making less money than I did, so I had no problem with it.”
One fight that did get away was a bout with Tyson, and while it would have looked like a mismatch on paper, with the power Esch possessed, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could have landed a bomb on the chin of a past his prime former champ and shocked the world.
“There were some talks,” said Esch. “But Tyson didn’t want to fight four rounds, and that’s the only way it would be an interesting fight. Even if it was scheduled for 12 or 15 or whatever someone wanted to schedule it for, it would have been a short fight because we would have just run at each other and come out swinging. It would have been a quick fight and I’d have knocked him out or he’d knock me out. But me and Mike are good friends now. He’s not a bad guy. A lot of people just didn’t get to know him. He’s not the most mature grown adult, but he’s not a bad person. All around he’s a good guy.”
So is Esch, as laid-back and accessible outside the ring as he was all business inside it. And he did eventually get a former heavyweight champion in the ring, as he made the leap from four-round fights to a 10-rounder in 2002 against none other than 52-year-old Hall of Famer Larry Holmes.
“I walked through his best right hand,” said Esch, who ultimately lost a unanimous decision to “The Easton Assassin.” “In the second round he hit me with a solid right as hard as he could punch and I smiled at him. After that, he was scared and running. He never even wanted to get close. Larry had a good jab, but it wasn’t nothing devastating. It was just stuff to keep you at bay, that’s about all it’s good for.”
Esch never was the jabbing sort. On fight night, he was all hooks and menace, not interested in the finer aspects of the sweet science. That worked just fine for him, and no matter the opponent, he believed he could always get the job done.
“It would be hard to beat me,” he said. “Not many guys my size can go out and do what I actually did. Not many 400-pound guys go out there and go 10 rounds. I just did it once to prove I could do it and I had a lot of fun fighting. I had a lot of fun doing what I was doing, but not many guys can get off the couch and get to training and do what I did.” He’s right, proving again that there’s only one Butterbean, with his appeal extending way beyond the boxing ring. He made the cover of a videogame, appeared in WWE’S Wrestlemania, and even has an entire generation thinking of him solely as the guy who knocked out Johnny Knoxville in
Jackass: The Movie. “I get that a good bit,” he laughs. And while entertainment would remain a part of his life, mainly in the 2011 reality television show Big Law: Deputy Butterbean there was still fighting to be done, even as mixed martial arts and kickboxing took a bigger role in his life than boxing did. “In boxing I didn’t get as much respect as I did in MMA because I went out and did my job and fought and won a lot of fights and people enjoyed it,” he said. “And that’s the main thing in fighting. That’s one of the reasons why I liked fighting MMA better than boxing, because people come to watch a fight. And that’s what I gave them. When I fought MMA, I didn’t start at the bottom and work my way up; I went right to the top. I started fighting in K-1 and PRIDE right off the bat. The same people that I knocked out in PRIDE, they were beating people like Francois Botha and other big names in boxing, and I went out and destroyed them.”
It wouldn’t be off-base to say that Esch was more accomplished in MMA, where he compiled a 15-10-1 record with eight submissions and seven knockouts, than he was in boxing. But ask a fight fan about Butterbean, and they’ll think of him as “The King of the Four-rounders.” And in a four-round bout, Esch believes he brought some unique skills to the table.
“I was able to run fast and move quick,” he said. “I couldn’t run fast for a long distance, but I was as fast as any of them. Punching power, I had more punching power than I’d say 95 per cent of the fighters out there. In four rounds I was hell on wheels; you couldn’t catch me. And then I proved I could go the distance with Holmes. So I didn’t have a lot to prove. I went out and had fun and made a lot of money.”
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A QUICK FIGHT WITH TYSON. ONE OF US WOULD HAVE BEEN KNOCKED OUT”
Esch stepped into the ring for last time on June 29, 2013 and was stopped in two rounds by Kirk Lawton. He hasn’t thought about coming back since. These days, it’s grandkids, barbecue, and soaking in a unique fighting legacy.
“I had fun,” he said. “That was the main thing. To have people cheer for you and to cheer on the underdog. I’m not supposed to be able to do that. I’m the 400-pound fat kid from school and ‘Hey, this guy can’t do nothing but eat hot dogs and watch TV,’ but I knocked a lot of people out that said I couldn’t do it and I proved them all wrong. I enjoyed doing that.”