The elements of confrontation were in place.
Alcohol.
A strained relationship with a girlfriend.
A handful of tough-guy bouncers at a tougher-than-usual bar.
The mix and match outcome didn't have to result in violence, yet somehow it did. And somehow Cody Koch, a professional heavyweight boxer with a 25-2 record and an Aug. 22 contract to fight at the Tropicana hotel-casino in Las Vegas, wound up dead.
The date was July 26 and the site was Shooters, a tavern just outside Saginaw, Mich.
To date, no one has been arrested and no charges have been filed, although the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department is recalibrating its investigation and promises a conclusion shortly.
As far as Koch's father is concerned, that investigation should lead to murder charges against one or all of the bouncers involved in his son's death.
"Somebody has to be brought to justice," Terry Koch said from his home in Anchorage, Alaska. "My son was killed."
The incident occurred one day before Koch's 26th birthday and less than a month before he was scheduled to face fellow heavyweight Ed Mahone at the Tropicana. Koch and Mahone had fought earlier this year, in February in Los Angeles, and Koch was looking to avenge a 10th-round TKO defeat.
Mahone remains on Saturday's Tropicana card while Koch has been laid to rest in Anchorage.
"All Alaska is in an uproar," Terry Koch said. "I can tell you our family is not satisfied and there's talk of getting the governor involved just to make sure this thing in Michigan doesn't get covered up.
"They told us they expected something within a couple of days, and that was back the week after Cody was killed. We still haven't heard anything."
But a Saginaw County Sheriff's captain, Robert Rae, said the investigation was delayed when each of the two men assigned to the case was pulled away from it by outside factors. One investigator suffered a broken leg while jet skiing, while the other is off for a second week due to a death in the family.
"We can't let this sit and we don't intend to," Rae said. "Another investigator is being assigned and we're going to go back and re-interview some people."
Asked whether the case was being approached as a homicide, Rae, the senior command officer for the investigation, replied "I can't say yeah or nay to that right now. But it is being approached as a death with more than a few questionable circumstances and I think we'll have something within a month."
When the sheriff's department releases its findings, it will include a formal autopsy. A preliminary report on the autopsy indicates Koch died of "unnatural causes" and, more specifically, that he was asphyxiated.
When police arrived at Shooters, they found Koch on the ground dead or dying and "in handcuffs" according to his father.
"All the actions taken (by the bouncers) were clearly in self-defense," Shooters attorney Bradley J. Shafer of Lansing told the Saginaw News. "No one disputes to me that Mr. Koch was the aggressor in this. He hit first."
Koch was outside the bar and attempting to re-enter when the bouncers intervened.
"All they told him was, 'You can come back some other night, but not tonight,'" Shafer said. "From the information I have, this gentleman was struggling the entire time that the police were on the way."
A friend of the Koch family said Cody and a girlfriend, Holly, were inside the bar when Cody told her he was going to return to his estranged wife, Michelle, and that he would be rejoining Michelle in Las Vegas this week. Cody and Holly took their discussion outside, and she later left in her vehicle.
The fatal confrontation with as many as six bouncers followed.
"It took a lot to get Cody riled," Terry Koch said. "Plus he was getting ready for the biggest fight of his life, so it's hard to imagine him starting something this serious."
Terry met with Michelle Koch on Tuesday in Anchorage and Michelle Koch may file a civil suit against Shooters. "They want that bar leveled," the family friend said. "Apparently there's been a lot of trouble there."
Cody Koch was staying in the central Michigan area as it is near the Bay City home of his manager, Art Dore.
Nicknamed the "Alaskan Assassin," Koch fought in Las Vegas a handful of times and was once promoted by Top Rank. His most recent fight here was June 4, 1996, at Arizona Charlie's.
He broke into pro boxing and won his first 24 fights after winning a national Toughman competition in 1995. After losing to Mahone in a bout he was winning on the judges' scorecards prior to the 10th round, Koch then lost to 1996 Olympic gold medal winner Vladimir Klitschko in four rounds in Germany on May 23.
Koch, 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, was buried Aug. 2 in Anchorage following visitation and a ceremony at center ring in a boxing gym. The funeral drew 800 onlookers.
Asked if he was troubled by not only the death but the pace of the investigation, Terry Koch, his voice breaking with emotion, said "I'm even more troubled than you can imagine."
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