LAS VEGAS - Five years ago, Joe Mesi had only 16 pro fights on his resume and was still living in his parents' basement.
Meager early purses against the likes of John Rainwater and Gary Winwon couldn't afford Mesi an independent life. His father refused to let him hold a job, insisting Baby Joe focus on the ring.
The family's finances were strained. Jack Mesi back then was asked how much he had invested in his son's boxing future.
"Without saying specifically how much," Jack Mesi replied, "everything I got."
Much has changed since then. Joe Mesi added 13 more victories to his record, became a No. 1 contender, signed a lucrative contract with cable network HBO and moved into a comfortable new house in Williamsville.
He also got hurt. Bad. His brain bled in his last fight. For that, his career was discontinued as he was poised to make a move on a feeble heavyweight division.
Now the Mesis are prepared again to drain their bank accounts, and that might be what it takes before they terminate their quest to overturn Joe Mesi's medical suspension.
"The answer is still the same: Everything I got," Jack Mesi said Thursday after the Nevada State Athletic Commission members unanimously agreed it's too dangerous for Joe Mesi to fight anymore.
Joe Mesi's crusade has been expensive already, and the bills will continue to pile up. Lead attorney Paul Cambria of Buffalo is a legal luminary. The fighter's Las Vegas lawyer, Richard Wright, is one of Nevada's most expensive. Medical experts are being paid for their testimony. Travel expenses are considerable.
"What's the price of a dream?" Jack Mesi said. "When you're a father, your dream is to make sure that your son gets his dream. That's what it's always been about. If I gotta sell my house, I'll sell my house. He's going to get his shot."
Some close to the situation wonder if Joe Mesi might need outside financial backers to pursue such an exorbitant endeavor. If there is a bankroll, he hasn't revealed the source.
He has made more than $1 million in purses over his career. His last two fights paid $450,000 apiece. But that's before expenses. And bearing in mind the Sweet Home High grad might not climb through the ropes again, his nest egg isn't very large.
While some athletes have taken out high-risk insurance policies with firms such as Lloyd's of London to protect themselves against career-ending injuries, Joe Mesi didn't have anything like that.
But at least the Independent Health plan he acquired through the Amherst Chamber of Commerce has paid for virtually all of his medical bills.
"Right now we're OK, and we're going to go until we can't afford it," Joe Mesi said. "My money has been managed properly. I know there will come a time, but at this point it's worth it to advance it forward. This is my dream, and the day is not close when I would give it up."
Jack Mesi has taken his share of criticism regarding his 31-year-old son's campaign to keep boxing. People routinely ask how Jack Mesi could allow Joe to risk his life like that.
"I know he's healthy, and I know he can be heavyweight champion of the world," Jack Mesi said. "If there was ever a question of a serious injury he'd be done. I'd duct tape him and throw him in the basement. He would not be fighting. No way."
Joe Mesi's bid has faced a landslide of opposition so far in Nevada. The commission's medical advisory board April 18 also was unanimous in recommending he never absorb another punch.
"There is no way that I could allow myself to be involved in any way with you going back in the ring and taking more punishment," Commissioner Flip Homansky, a Las Vegas emergency room doctor and medical director of Universal Health Services and Hospitals, told Joe Mesi on Thursday. "I feel as strong about that as I possibly could."
Still, the Mesi camp is optimistic it can find satisfaction in court.
"We're rounding third now," Jack Mesi said. "We're going to win in court."
If that happens, it would be a groundbreaking case for the boxing community and open the floodgates for any previously suspended boxer to reopen a case.
Cambria said the next legal step likely will be taken in the 8th Judicial District Court in Las Vegas, and the Mesi camp should file papers within the next two weeks. Cambria is hopeful the case will go before a judge inside two months.
Cambria will argue Mesi's suspension was mishandled along procedural lines and that the commission abused its authority. The case will hinge on whether a boxing license is a right or a privilege and which side should have the burden of proof in denying one.
"We'll go to court, and hopefully the courts will set some rules," said Cambria, who has represented Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, sniper James Kopp, alternative rocker Marilyn Manson and rapper DMX. "The law is strong in this state regarding the rules and the standards of evidence and so on that I feel they need to be followed but weren't followed."
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has a regulation on the books that prevents anyone with a history of brain bleeding to fight in the state.
The commission also operates under the belief a boxing license is a privilege and that a fighter must prove he's medically fit to fight. Even so, Jack Mesi insisted their experts carried that burden.
"We were overwhelming with our evidence, with our presentation, with our doctors and our lawyers," Jack Mesi said. "Even if the burden of proof legally should be on us, we certainly provided all the proof any court would accept. Maybe (the commission) decided to play it safe."
Mesi's medical experts presented case studies of people with healed brain injuries cleared to return to competition or, in the case of one patient, active combat.
Dr. Steve Olvey, a renowned auto racing medical authority and director of neurosurgical intensive care at the University of Miami School of Medicine Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, discussed his treatment of open-wheel driver Roberto Guerrero.
Guerrero was involved in a devastating crash in 1987 while testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He suffered worse injuries than Mesi and was in a coma for 17 days. Olvey cleared Guerrero to return to racing, and Guerrero was fine.
Dr. Julian Bailes, chairman of West Virginia University's neurosurgery department, has extensive experience with NFL players. He spoke of Ohio University running back Chad Brinker, who had a plumb-sized brain cyst extracted during his junior season. Bailes approved Brinker's return to full contact a few months later. Brinker was a 1,000-yard rusher his senior year and was signed by the New York Jets in 2003.
Dr. Michael Landi, the chief of neurological surgery at Kenmore Mercy Hospital, used the example of a soldier whose brain bled from falling off a ladder and cracking his head on concrete. Landi released him to return to active combat without further incident, but when asked if he would clear that same man to box, Landi indicated he wouldn't.
"You play football. You play hockey. You don't play boxing," said Commissioner Tony Alamo, chief of staff at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas. "It's apples and oranges. You're dealing with sports, including auto racing, where they wear helmets."
Cambria, however, found the football and auto racing analogies anything but fruitless.
"Before he started the fight, he was an apple," Cambria said. "The doctors say today that he's healed, and he's an apple again. So he should be treated like one and not like an orange.
"We've had a lot of "What if' questions. "What if' is not the same as "What is.' We're talking about his entire life, entire future."
