Passersby can’t help but notice the big dog snarling at them through the window, the one that wants to come straight through the plate glass whenever they walk past this house.
He’s a lab/pitbull mix, and who knows what might happen if this animal got loose. Probably tear into a person, growling, lunging, fangs bared. He’s the perfect dog for a man once known as The Predator.
“He tries to go through the window whenever anyone goes past,’’ the Predator says. “He’s the perfect guard dog. No one is coming into the house with him around.’’
His owner was no different in his day, when he climbed into a ring and raged into an opponent, always on top of the guy, providing little room to breathe, always right there, nose to nose with an opponent.
Matt “The Predator” Vanda, retired from the ring, is living a docile, placid, contemporary life with a wife and three daughters to keep him honest, to keep him acting more like a family man than the hard living ghter he once was.
“I always thought it was easier to walk straight in, to go after an opponent,’’Vanda says about his fighting style.
Times have changed. Vanda has been married to Cindy since 2008. They have three daughters: Gabriella fifteen, Viviana ten and Magdalena, two.
The ladies in his life have changed him, particularly Cindy, Vanda says.
“No more fighting and no more drinking,’’ he said. “Life is a lot easier now.’’
He works and comes home to the family, but even his current occupation is
reflective of who he once was. He’s a unionized laborer, does demolition work, breaking up concrete and the like, one tough job after another. “It’s okay,’’ he says. I thought boxing was good money.’’
He works long hours, sometimes even week- ends, but it keeps him grounded. “Sort of like boxing,’’ he said. The discipline, at least.
With four women in his life, he now thinks about the future, about a pension and life down the road. “Boxing and drinking always seemed to go together,’’ he says, “but I haven’t had a drink in three years.’’ He credits Cindy for that. “You need a good lady in your life, to reel you in. She saved me.’’
Vanda was a rarity in professional boxing, a ghter with very little amateur background but who knew nonetheless that boxing was a career he wanted to pursue.
He was twelve years old and playing football with Pat Flanagan, who was being encour- aged to give the sport a try by his dad, Jerry. “I went to the gym with Pat, fell in love with boxing and never left the gym again.’’
Vanda fought in one Golden Gloves tourna- ment, lost in the semi nal round and turned his attention to the professional ranks. He was seventeen years old and ghting under manager Tom Brunette.
At age twenty-three he left St. Paul for California to begin training under Norman Wilson, a Marine veteran. “He was one of
the best coaches I ever had,’’ said Vanda, “Awesome.’’ Two years later he returned to Minnesota and began training with Otis Gage. A couple of ghts later, he was training under Hall of Fame trainer Ron Lyke.
“Ron was like a father gure to me,’’Vanda said. “He taught me how to hold my hands tucked in, but most important was that he helped me learn to turn my punches over and he made my defense a lot better.’’
That relationship ended when it began apparent that Lyke’s ghter of the future was Caleb Truax and that he and Vanda would have to ght one day.
Vanda started his professional career di erently than many if not most ghters, with a bout
away from home, stopping Ed Fuller in two rounds at the Fairgrounds Exposition Center in Kearney, Nebraska, on March 30, 1996. The rst ght in his hometown was his fourth as a professional, on November 29, 1996, and he stopped Angel Luis Salgado in two rounds.
He stopped or knocked out his rst eleven opponents before earning an eight-round decision over Rick Stockton in Pueblo, Colorado. Vanda won his rst 31 ghts, a streak that ended on August 19, 2004 when he was knocked out in eight rounds by Armando Velardez at Aldrich Arena in St. Paul, one of only three times he was stopped in sixty-one professional ghts.
He lost decisions twice to Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., the World Boxing Council middleweight champion, the one opponent mentioned when asked if there was anyone he would like to ght again.
“Obviously, that’s not going to happen,’’he said. He doesn’t dwell on decisions that might have gone his way, about losses that were questionable. “There probably are close ghts I won that might have gone the other way,’’ he explained. “So it all evens out in the end.’’
His career came to an abrupt halt on January 25, 2014 in Madison Square Garden. Fighting Sean Monaghan for the World Boxing Council Continental Americas light heavyweight title, he ruptured a bicep while throwing a left hook, one of his best punches, in the rst round.
Today there is a new passion in his life, girls softball, a sport he has coached for some time, largely because there was a daughter
or daughters involved...slow pitch during the summer months and fast pitch during the fall.
He was doing just that, coaching, when he answered a caller on his cell phone several weeks ago informing him he was now part of a larger home than the one with the big plate glass window, and a larger family, too, in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
