BOXING has never seen a stranger incident. About a minute into the seventh round of Riddick Bowe’s rematch with Evander Holyfield at the open-air Caesars Palace arena in Las Vegas on November 6, 1993, a “lunatic parasailer” crash-landed ringside to create “the most dramatic occasion in the history of boxing,” according to Harry Mullan’s ringside report.
James Miller, 30, disturbed what was a “magnificent championship battle” for Bowe’s WBA and IBF heavyweight titles. The delay took 22 minutes, and MC Michael Buffer kept the crowd of 14,242 calm by talking to them throughout.
When the action continued, Holyfield worked toward another unforeseen event by outpointing Bowe on a majority decision to become only the third man in history to regain world heavyweight honours, with Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali being the first two.
Holyfield’s performance in a thrilling fight made the night “unforgettable anyway,” besides Miller’s bizarre intervention.
Bowe had unanimously outpointed Holyfield the year before, leading Evander to be considered as the underdog heading into the rematch.
However, under new trainer Emanuel Steward, the 31-year-old outboxed and outgunned a “bloated” Bowe by sticking to a measured game plan, and the pair tried to continue scrapping after the final bell.
The third and final chapter of their fierce trilogy happened two years later, when Bowe became the first man to stop ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield.
from George Gigney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKoAlpWD_Lg
Taken from Wikipedia
The lines of his paraglider became tangled in the overhead lights, after which he landed on the top rope of the ring with his parachute still tangled in the lights. He tried to hang on with one foot and one hand on that top rope for a few seconds until he either fell or was dragged down into the crowd by spectators, his parachute ripping away from the lights above.
Fans and the fighters' security detail swarmed around him immediately and began attacking him. He was knocked unconscious during the attack. One security officer reportedly struck Miller twenty times. He was rushed to a nearby hospital as spectators cut his paraglider into pieces for souvenirs. After his release from the hospital, Miller was taken to the Clark County Detention Center, where he was charged with dangerous flying and released on $200 bail. In an exclusive interview with British journalists after the bout, Miller categorized his ring crash as accidental and not intentional, claiming it was caused by mechanical problems. Miller later joked, "It was a heavyweight fight and I was the only guy who got knocked out."
The media immediately dubbed Miller "Fan Man," for the paramotor (lightweight engine and propeller) attached to his harness.
On September 22, 2002, Miller was reported missing after he disappeared earlier that morning while driving to the wilderness. His car was found near the Resurrection Pass Trail in Chugach National Forest on the Kenai Peninsula. A search was launched but was suspended on October 13. On March 9, 2003, a group of hunters bushwhacking through the woods on the peninsula found Miller's decomposing body. An autopsy revealed that Miller had hanged himself from a tree. Police said they believed Miller had chosen the remote Resurrection Pass Trail and had veered deep off-trail in hopes that his body would not have been discovered for years, if ever. At the time of his death, Miller's girlfriend was pregnant with the couple's first child. She gave birth to their son shortly before Miller's body was discovered in March 2003.