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tommy morrison: deluded duke down dead end street
Thu 04 May, 1:04 AM
Tommy Morrison, the 'Great White Hope' who turned pugilistic pariah after testing positive for the HIV virus in 1996, has always found it difficult to accept that his fighting days are over.
Now 37, neither age nor illness has withered the former WBO heavyweight champion's desire to defy common medical consensus and embark upon another attempt at a comeback.
Morrison last fought in Tokyo in November 1996, after his positive test was made public. Although not currently banned in the US, most commissions' health rules preclude him being granted a licence.
Undeterred, Morrison will re-apply for the right to fight again in Arizona and Nevada, whose Commission he also intends to sue for "HIV discrimination" and preventing him from making a living as a boxer.
"I'm looking forward to fighting someone," Morrison told the Arizona Republic this week. "It angers me that they won't let me but I'm going to try to change that.
"There's no way they should be able to kick me out of the sport for something that's harmless, unless you believe the government."
The view of his attorney Randy Lang is consistent with Morrison's belief that his virus is harmless and will ultimately disappear. Lang told the paper: "I don't think he's HIV positive any more".
Morrison said he neither knows nor cares how he caught the virus, but that it is "scientifically impossible" to get it by having sex. He was known for his bawdy lifestyle as much as for the crashing left hook which took him to the top of the world.
"Tommy was a womaniser like nothing you could imagine," his manager, the late Bill Cayton once said. "They would throw themselves at him. I guess you can only beat them off with a baseball bat for so long."
The public acclaim dried up immediately Morrison went public with the results of a second blood test, conducted shortly before a scheduled low-key fight against the journeyman Arthur Weathers.
The Weathers fight was to be Morrison's first of a series under his new promoter Don King which would culminate in a multi-million dollar showdown against Mike Tyson.
Instead of hero worship, Morrison headed straight back to his small home town of Jay, Oklahoma, to find the 'Home of World Champion Tommy Morrison' signs torn down by the roadside.
"My best friends wouldn't even wave at me," Morrison said. "These people were just complete idiots, uneducated people. No class at all."
Morrison fled with his young family and his life briefly threatened to spiral dangerously out of control. He spent 14 months in prison for drugs and firearms offences.
It was a tragic shift in fortune for a fighter they nicknamed 'The Duke', who had played a starring role in Rocky V and claimed to be a distant relative of the late John Wayne.
In the ring, Morrison won the WBO title by outpointing George Foreman in 1993. He had blond hair and dollar signs in his eyes. Not only that, but he could fight a bit too.
But when Morrison stood on the brink of his biggest breakthrough things started to unravel. Lack of focus contributed to a shocking first round knockout loss to Michael Bentt four months into his reign.
Two years later, a brawling victory over Donovan 'Razor' Ruddock set up another world title chance against Lennox Lewis in Atlantic City, which Morrison lost comprehensively inside seven rounds.
At the time, the New Jersey commission did not require fighters to take HIV tests. Once Morrison's virus was made public five months later, referee Mills Lane took his own test, which proved negative.
Morrison made his emotional announcement at a press conference in Tulsa. "I hope I can serve as a warning that living this lifestyle can only lead to one thing - and that is misery.
"I honestly thought I had a better chance of winning the lottery than contracting this disease. I've never been so wrong in my life. I thought I was bullet-proof and I'm not."
Today Morrison appears to believe he is bullet-proof after all. He is convinced that if he still has the virus at all, it is benign to the point of posing no risk to the health of either himself or his next opponent.
Whether anybody will be willing to put his theory to the test is open to question. Tommy Morrison has come through enough hard fights in his life to consider embarking upon another which he simply cannot win.
FIGHTER OF THE WEEK: Sergei Gulyakevich, the Belorussian who proved far more than the usual east European pushover in stretching Alex Arthur to seven high-octane rounds in their European title fight.
LEGEND OF THE WEEK: Duilio Loi, considered one of Italy's finest and most popular fighters, who twice beat the great Carlos Ortiz for the world light-welterweight title and lost just three times in his 14-year career.
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Originally Posted by Taeth
good article
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