M-16 Mateen and The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media Correspondent
From Michael Dokes to Emmanuel Steward, recently professional boxing lost many of its luminaries, as well as boxers of notoriety. By the time of his death, Ernest M-16 Mateen, a former American and world cruiserweight champion of various belts, wins, losses and draws, had become a persona non grata, an unwelcome person.
M-16 was the fighter belonging to the late Dapper Don, the Godfather, John Gotti. After Gotti went to jail, Mateen’s career went into a downward spiral, aside from the occasional upset. The real problem had to do with family, marriage and domestic disputes. While Mateen spoke proudly to me of his teenage football playing son, beneath the surface, there were problems. Past convictions involving drug related offenses. Lost of property. Domestic disputes. Family in jail need money for lawyers before going to trial when they should have plea bargained out. A very bad reputation for scamming money out of his friends, until there weren’t any but me.
I never gave M-16 any money, and he never asked for any. I never had a problem with M-16 as my friend, strangely. Mateen would always either split or pay for dinners at the diner or the desert cafe, and always paid his own way on my reporter trips to Atlantic City. His name was never introduced at the boxing matches there. With me M-16 was always friendly and pleasant, which is why we talked comeback.
Mateen claimed he was offered a cruiserweight title fight with Guillermo Jones, on a night when he socialized with Don King at Aviator Arena in Brooklyn. I advised against it, given his six years of inactivity. I had some easier comeback fights lined up for Mateen, beginning with 46 year old southpaw Mike Alvarez. Fighters such as John Douglas and King Arthur Williams, both over 40, also expressed an interest in fighting Mateen.
What Mateen wanted in the long run was not money or glory or fame. M-16 only wanted to regain his USBO and WBU championship belts in the ring. Though lesser title belts, he treasured them because he earned them, though he later pawned his gold and diamond title belts to a boxing collector. The titles had real emotional meaning to M-16. He considered himself ‘the champ’ anyway. He had reached the stage where he didn’t need gold or diamonds, just to regain his focus. M-16 also talked about some serious business partner ventures he had in the works.
My biggest problem with Mateen was separating fact from fiction, truth from lies. I never challenged what Mateen said, and he was extraordinarily nice by me. Mateen maintained a veil of mystery with me by disappearing from the New York City area for months at a time, then would show up for months at a time. I never pried into his personal life. According to M-16, he was going through a divorce soon and it was for the best for all concerned. He looked forward to his settlement, described his marriage as being over, and wanted to move on and return to boxing for himself, free of marital distraction (which is how he viewed his situation at that time). I also secured for Mateen the possibility of a new lucrative career as a physical trainer.
Mateen headed down south, to Florida, and was wired money to go to camp in Pennsylvania, which is where M-16 Mateen’s story ends. He never got his divorce settlement, so he never divorced, and in the final argument with his wife, singer Kia Jeffries, she got beaten by the butt of a gun, and Mateen got killed by her with his own gun when he got tired of beating her over the head and dropped the gun. The end occurred in some obscure motel room in Georgia.
What events took place leading up to Ernest Mateen’s final confrontation, and why Mateen’s life ended as it did, are a mystery to me. The woman Mateen introduced to me as his wife was not the one who killed him, yet another mystery. Perhaps Mateen was living with someone else while his ‘marriage’ on paper was long over. It might explain part of ‘the end’.
An unpaid advisor offers advice. As I am also licensed as a boxing manager, I will try as a volunteer to do the right thing and help fighters who ask for help to move their careers forward in a positive direction. I did not find out what happened to Mateen until a mutual friend called me several months later to tell me M-16 had died. I never heard what happened because Mateen had long fallen off the boxing radar by his own demeanor. Besides a Wikipedia death entry, nobody cared.
How I wish Mateen had called me to ask for help instead of doing the wrong thing. I profess I have always had a love affair with the cruiserweight division, and after the previous cruiserweight contender I advised, Julio Cesar Matthews, went to jail for 12 years, I thought Mateen (who I met at ringside at Cordon Bleu Catering Hall in Queens, New York) was worth giving the cruiser division a second try. Perhaps the warning signs were there but I didn’t see them. Mateen seemed to get along with everyone except his own family. Nonetheless M-16 had seemed anxious to turn his life around, go back to serious training (if only for himself) and start his life anew.
One can only guess what the circumstances are leading up to a professional boxer’s death outside the ring. Mateen’s greatest danger was to himself. M-16 Mateen self-destructed, another Hector Camacho Sr. and Arturo Gatti gone, without rhyme or reason. We may always wonder why, but the bottom line is I will miss my friend.
There’s a famous poster called the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I believe Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart are in it. In my ‘boxing boulevard of broken dreams’, I see Emmanuel Steward, Bert Sugar, Angelo Dundee, Carmen Basilio and Omar Henry sitting at the soda fountain counter, with M-16 Mateen, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, Arturo Gatti, Johnny Tapia and Hector Macho Camacho behind the counter smiling serving the drinks. It doesn’t make any sense.
Dundee, Sugar and Steward, we all appreciate their contributions to boxing. The others, they died young. As the Billy Joel song says ‘Only The Good Die Young’. The path of life, not just boxing, contains many pitfalls on the way to paradise. If only M-16 had shared with my his true inner turmoil, he might still be alive. Instead he is dead, having always been warm and friendly with me, never revealing a hint of trouble with himself and his personal life. He did not bring his troubles with him in out friendship.
M-16 enjoyed talking about family life, going to boxing matches I was covering, living dangerously playing risky poker hands, and demonstrating his reputation as a lady’s man. For awhile, we looked like the soul version of ‘The Odd Couple’ at boxing events. When with me, M-16 was the casual ‘king of being cool’. Whatever his cologne was, I always got a kick out of it when women picked him up. How did he accomplish it? Watching M-16 in motion was far better than reading a ‘pick up’ book.
Denied a free ticket for a boxing event I was covering upon our arrival in Atlantic City, M-16 Mateen told me “Watch how I do it!” and proceeded to serenade and charm the girl at the ticket counter all about how beautiful she was and how he wanted to know her intimately after the show. The young woman fell for it, lock, stock and barrel, gave M-16 her telephone number on a piece of paper, then reached into the VIP envelope and gave Mateen one of the best tickets in the house for free. She probably would have given him all of the tickets for free if he wanted them. I still don’t know how M-16 did it. No matter who the woman was, M-16 always scored wherever we went, like magic. Whatever ‘it’ was with women, he had it, or so it seemed.
Mateen had an estranged relationship with his wife, however, which I now realize in reflection, the one serious relationship he had, and I suppose looking back that was the one which counted. My only confusion was M-16 referred to a number of different women as his current ‘relationship’. M-16 was one of those people you cannot figure out, so I never tried, and for that reason we both got along so well.
One time M-16 took me to the poker table where he played for an hour, bluffing big when I went to get him to come back to the boxing show for the main event. M-16 wiped out every poker player at Bally’s of all their chips, pocketing the dough into his pocket, laughing all the way to the chip booth. He came with barely enough money for bus fare, insisted on paying for himself, and left Atlantic City with everything the gamblers had. I told M-16 “We didn’t come to Atlantic City for that.” Ernest replied “One way or another I’m gonna take these jive talking fools for their money!” Indeed, they did try to talk the talk with M-16 at the table, who obliged by winning. Once a boxing champ, always a poker champ in many respects. M-16 wanted to teach me how to play poker. I have never played with cards. He viewed me as a sort of ‘rain man’, whose IQ would win the table games if he taught how to play poker his way. I was never interested in playing poker, however.
M-16 sometimes talked to me of his previous felonies of the long forgotten past, and indicated to me he intended never to go back to jail. Since M-16 spoke that as truth, I can only presume M-16 had a really bad emotional night on the night was killed by his wife. The authorities call it self-defense for her. I call it major misunderstanding of M-16, much like the classic song ‘Oh God, please don’t let me be misunderstood’.
Though I had written about my friend Ernest M-16 Mateen when he died, I wanted to go back and remember the little things we talked about. I still don’t know where M-16 is buried, and will make a connection soon to find out where he is. M-16 came to me first to say hello at ringside and wanted to be my friend. Now I only hope for the chance to say goodbye, wherever he is. M-16’s current whereabouts dead, so it seems, are as much a mystery as his current whereabouts were when he was alive.
M-16 was a great talker and a great romancer with the ladies, he always made me laugh, and he always had a warm smile as a soft spoken gentle giant, like a little lamb. To me, M-16’s violent death made no sense. M-16 is just another lost face I guess, on the boxing boulevard of broken dreams. He won’t be the last one either.
His favorite song was the Rocky theme ‘There’s No easy Way Out, No Shortcut Home’. A great fighter, in the truest sense of the word, has to know when to quit.
Mateen, who won a ten round decision in his last bout in the ring, went down for the count in his last fight outside of the ring. Shot to death tragically, like his father was many years ago in Bed-Stuyvesant, Mateen functioned without a father figure for guidance for many years. M-16’s soul was lost. Now he is home with the Lord.
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