Evan Jacobs was 14, watching a fight in the kitchen with his father, curious about all the talk surrounding the comeback of George Foreman, a former heavyweight champion long out of the game.
It was December 1988, and it wasn’t much of a fight. Foreman knocked David Jaco down three times in the first round and it was over at 2:18.
What stayed with Jacobs wasn’t Foreman. It was Jaco.
Who was this guy?
Nearly four decades later, Jacobs has an answer — and a screenplay.
The filmmaker, who has written, directed and produced roughly 60 microbudget movies, recently finished a script about Jaco’s life and is pitching it around Hollywood.
“He called me up and he was telling me that he always admired me,” said Jaco, now 72 and a Bradenton resident for more than 30 years. “He said I had a very interesting story. I was a palooka with very little chance of winning (some of those fights).”
Jaco takes no offense at the label. In boxing, a palooka is a steppingstone, a fighter brought in to pad someone else’s record. He titled his 2012 book “Spontaneous Palooka and Mr. Mom.”
It was a living, and it took him against the best heavyweights of the 1980s and ’90s. Besides Foreman, he fought — and lost to — Mike Tyson, Tommy Morrison, Carl Williams, Tony Tucker, Buster Douglas, Mike Weaver and Oliver McCall. He finished 24-25-1 with 19 knockouts. He was never ranked.
He was also never carried out.
“I always came to fight,” he said. “No one ever knocked me out cold. It was always the three-knockdown rule. I was never laid out on the canvas. I was a true warrior.”
Jacobs found him on social media.
“I was on Facebook one day and I saw something related to Dave,” said Jacobs, a lifelong boxing fan.
“What he did was remarkable,” he said. “He basically self-managed, self-trained, took fights on short notice and was not always properly prepared, just to support his family. I felt that I wanted to write a screenplay about his life. I contacted the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame (of which Jaco is a member) and they got in touch with Dave. Not long after, my phone rang, and it was Dave on the phone. I told him what I wanted to do, with his permission. He said, ‘I want you to do it!’”
For Jaco, the pitch carries a possibility his career never did.
“I never made any serious money boxing,” he said. “I never had a million-dollar payday. Against George Foreman I only got $10,000. I am hoping that the movie comes through. That would be very exciting. Maybe I could make some good money from it. That would be awesome.”
Jaco turned pro in 1981 after fighting in Toughman competitions, and he went where the paydays were — Europe, Asia and beyond. He started 12-0 against club fighters before his first real test, and first loss, against Carl “The Truth” Williams.
It didn’t matter who was in the other corner. He fought anywhere he could make a few dollars for his twin sons, Aaron and Adam, who lived with him after his first marriage ended.
“I raised them,” said Jaco, still an imposing 6-foot-6 and later the father of four daughters. “All my kids are successful. All doing great.”
Both twins had short pro careers, Aaron finishing 21-4. Both now train fighters in the Sarasota area.
Jaco’s breakthrough came in 1985 against Ruddock, a Canadian expected to do big things.
“I kicked his ass,” Jaco said. Ruddock’s corner ended it in the eighth. “He was getting tired. His legs were buckling. He quit on his stool. He threw in the towel. He claimed he had an asthma attack. He just took me too lightly.”
Ruddock went on to twice fight Tyson for real money. Jaco went back to work.
Not long after, Jaco faced 19-year-old Mike Tyson, already building a reputation as a devastating puncher.
“He was a bear,” said Jaco, who was 19-5 at the time. “He came at me like a wild man.”
Tyson stopped him in the first round to go to 16-0.
Jaco still cringes at the Foreman fight.
“I had it all planned, jab and score,” he said. “He hit me on my left arm and then hit me with a full haymaker on my spine. The pain was excruciating. That was a dirty shot. I still have back problems from that.”
He fought on until 1994.
“That’s the crux of the story exactly,” said Jacobs, who knows it may take a year or more for the screenplay to move forward. “I don’t care if I direct it or someone else does. I just want to see Dave get recognition, and some kind of payday out of it.”