And if he doesn’t, it won’t be for lack of trying.

In the week before the McBride-Minus fight, Rich Cappiello starts to resemble the Tasmanian Devil character in the old Warner Brothers cartoons — a small, cell-phone-toting whirlwind. "Kevin needs an EKG," he barks into his phone, barreling around Brockton in a big, black pick-up truck. "Now I’ve got to call the [Massachusetts boxing] commissioner," he continues. "That’s always good for an argument." A few minutes earlier, Cappiello had been at the center of a fuss about some missing fight tickets. Now, as he dials the commissioner’s number, the pick-up barely misses a lamppost.

Sometimes, even Rich Cappiello’s enthusiasm wanes. "This is the toughest business in the entire world," he says. "I’ve got to deal with the sponsors, the fighters, the managers, the trainers — all these personalities. I’ve got to deal with the advertisers. I’ve got to worry about medicals, ambulances, police, flying fighters in, hotel accommodations. I get days when I say to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ I could sell cars all day and live happily ever after. But this is something I’ve just got to do. I’m in too deep to get out now, anyway."

A few years ago, Cappiello came to the conclusion that the only way to "take this to the next level" — a favorite phrase of his — would be to get his fights aired on television. For months he wandered around with a briefcase, soft-soaping producers and sweet-talking money men, pitching his idea for a televised Friday-night boxing card in Boston, to no avail. "No one would give me an opportunity," he says. "I didn’t understand. I’d been putting on good-quality stuff." When it comes to boxing, though, what you do is far less important than whom you know. Cappiello may have had the drive, the vision, the guts, and the cash, but he didn’t have the connections. As Petronelli says, "You gotta be hooked up."

And so, more determined than ever, Cappiello took an enormous gamble. Rather than being paid for airing his fights on TV, as is the norm, Cappiello worked out a deal with Fox Sports New England wherein he pays them — which makes his Friday-night fights, in effect, very elaborate (and expensive) ads. "These things run us $45,000-$50,000 a show," he says. "But this is going to put me into a position where eventually I’ll get boxers with big followings, which will lead me to bigger and better things. I’ve got the TV exposure I need. Every month people are looking at my name. I’m forcing people to do business with me."

While some might shake their heads at such stunts, few would doubt the wisdom of Cappiello’s next goal: lining up the Mohegan Sun Casino as a long-term sponsor. After all, if you’re hoping to bring Las Vegas–style boxing to New England, casino cash will go a long way toward making that dream a reality. The only snag is, the New England casinos have their own plans to bring Las Vegas–style boxing to New England. While local promoters gaze longingly at the gambling halls of Connecticut, the casinos are casting their eyes toward Nevada and New Jersey.

"There is a rivalry now between casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City and Connecticut," says Paul Munick, vice-president of sports and entertainment at Mohegan Sun, the home of a new 10,000-seat arena. "We are just starting out, but we will be up there with anyone." To this end, Munick aspires to host today’s champions, not tomorrow’s. "I am not," he says, "going to put a thousand people in a 10,000-seat arena." The predicament facing Cappiello, then, is that in order to build up his fighters’ prestige, he needs the exposure the premium cable stations can offer; in order to break into cable, he needs to stage his fights at a top venue like Mohegan Sun; in order to stage a fight at Mohegan Sun, he needs fighters with prestige. You gotta be hooked up.

To make matters worse, local promoters still have not managed to shrug off their long-standing reputation for staging one-sided fights. Even as the likes of Cappiello strive to rehabilitate the image of New England boxing, they find themselves being denigrated as the record-padding, money-grubbing, donkey-representing promoters of old. "They’re not promoters," says Munick. "They buy and sell talent, put on a show, then walk away from it. They shouldn’t be calling themselves promoters. They’re talent buyers."

Cappiello, of course, begs to differ. "I honestly believe I’m the hardest-working promoter in New England," he says. "I’m the first person to go out and get it done ever in the history of this state. I produced a TV show and made it successful. I’ve got good ratings. I’ve got commitments from sponsors, and Fox TV wants to do it again next year. Things are picking up because of the work I’m putting into it. To me, that’s what a real promoter is."

If Cappiello has a weakness as a promoter, it may be that he’s too nice. The fight game is notorious for its infighting, backbiting, double-dealing characters, and Cappiello’s wide-eyed enthusiasm could very well get him burned. "This is a very cutthroat business," he says. "Not many people are out to help you. Most people are out to hurt you. Fighters lie to you. Promoters lie to you. It can be an evil business. There are a lot of bad people out there."

Boxing writer Ted Bodenrader agrees. "Getting involved in boxing reminds me of that scene [in Raiders of the Lost Ark] where Indiana Jones drops a torch down a well," he says. "He’s expecting to see gold, and all he sees is snakes." Almost everyone you talk to about Cappiello, meanwhile, will tell you what a straight-up guy he is, how he has an emotional investment in his boxers as well as a financial one. "Rich is a real sweetheart of a guy," says Tony DeMarco. "A real nice guy."

All the same, there are those in the boxing industry who cannot stand Cappiello, who view him as overly ambitious, a precocious pup who hasn’t learned his place in the pecking order. One of the people who appear to harbor something less than great affection for Cappiello is renowned Rhode Island boxing promoter Jimmy Burchfield. "Richie’s coming up, and he’s a thorn in Burchfield’s side," says Petronelli. "He’s not going to be patting Richie on the back, that’s for sure."

Or, as Cappiello puts it, "He hates me."

A 25-year veteran of the fight game, Burchfield is one of the old hard-talking, take-no-prisoners promoters who seem capable of eliciting as much fear as their fighters do. "Jimmy’s a real Mafioso-type character," says Bodenrader. "For some reason, he really has it in for Richie. I guess that’s what happens when you’re threatened by someone. He’s become very ambitious over the last year, trying to take over New England. He sounds like Norman Schwarzkopf: ‘We’re strengthening our position in Massachusetts.’ "

In what Boston Herald writer George Kimball described as the "Burchfield-Cappiello Border War," the two promoters have consistently run head-to-head fight cards (Burchfield has a fight scheduled in Providence the night of Cappiello’s McBride bout), they have vied with equal enthusiasm for casino backing (Burchfield has a deal with Foxwoods), and they have tried to one-up each other with TV contracts ("He’s supposed to have a show on ESPN," says Cappiello. "I’ve got my time slot written in ink").

If Burchfield and Cappiello are engaged in a kind of war, then Burchfield dropped a Daisy Cutter earlier this year, signing a couple of hot prospects who had been affiliated with Cappiello: Malden super-middleweight Dana Rosenblatt and Everett cruiserweight Rich LaMontagne. "These are two of the biggest names in boxing," says Bodenrader, "and they were Rich’s friends. It hurt him. I know it hurt him."

"I’ve called [Burchfield] many times to try to bury the hatchet," Cappiello says. "But he won’t do it. I don’t know, maybe he thinks I’m going to compete with him one day. He’s one of the guys above me, but he sees me right behind [him]. I’ve done my best to try to talk to the guy. What am I going to do, beg? You reach a point where you have to hold on to your pride."

For his part, Burchfield adopts a disinterested air when discussing Cappiello. "I don’t know too much about him," he says. "I know he’s kind of young." When reminded of Cappiello’s ambitions to woo casinos and cable companies, however, Burchfield’s voice takes on a hard edge. "He’s been doing shows off casino property," he says. "I’m doing fights on casino property. You’ve got to have the talent that national TV is going to buy. That’s what the casinos are interested in. I have the best fighters that are out there: Dana Rosenblatt and Richie LaMontagne — these are fighters that national TV will buy and casinos will have on their venues."