By Mark Vester

Because of last weekend's huge Hopkins-Wright pay-per-view, almost all of the media overlooked an excellent New York Times article by John Eligon and Duff Wilson, by far the most comprehensive piece I've seen written on the ongoing saga of former heavyweight champion Tommmy Morrison and his HIV status.

In 1996, Morrison was one win away from a potential multi-million dollar date with Mike Tyson. Before the negotiations could ever get serious for the fight, Morrison tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, during a routine pre-fight blood test in Las Vegas.

Over a decade later, Morrison, who claimed his 1996 HIV test was actually a false-positive, made his return to the ring in February to stop journeyman John Castle at the Mountaineer Race Track in Chester, West Virginia. Prior to the bout, numerous blood tests were performed on Morrison and all came back negative for the HIV virus.

Since that bout, there has been a lot of controversy over Morrison resuming his career after initially testing positive for HIV in 1996. Morrison claims that he first tested negative for HIV in 2000-2001, when he spent 14-months in prison for charges stemming from drugs and weapons. Morrison said he kept the test result to himself until he was able to do more research. In 2006, he began to publically dispute his HIV status.

The New York Times had three HIV medical experts review two of Morrison's recent blood tests. They said if the blood actually belongs to Morrison, he may have received a false-positive back in 96.

But, The Times article also wrote that five prominent ringside physicians were not convinced by Morrison's recent negative results. They told the paper that Morrison tested positive for HIV "a number of times" in Nevada in 96, the virus is not curable and Morrison waited for almost a decade before challenging the 96 results.

There is a new testing procedure for HIV in Nevada and the five physicians interviewed by The Times do not think he will pass.

“I seriously, seriously doubt he would pass any of this,” Dr. David Watson, the chief ringside physician in Nevada, told The Times.

The Times were able to obtain three documents that were previously never made public, in relation to Morrison’s blood tests that were taken this year.

The first test report from LabCorp in Phoenix was taken on Feb. 6 and came back negative for HIV antibodies. The second, also coming back negative, was another LabCorp report based on a Feb. 14 test.

A third test report, from Specialty Laboratories of Valencia, Calif., on blood drawn from Jan. 5, said Morrison tested positive for HIV antibodies but negative for HIV in RNA. That report was released by Randy D. Lang, Morrison’s former legal adviser, who said the antibody result showed Morrison was still infected.

But, experts told the paper that his negative RNA result may raise the possibility that the positive antibody portion of the test was a false-positive result.

Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, a Harvard professor who directs AIDS research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and chairman of the board of the HIV Medicine Association, reviewed the third test and said "it’s hard to know for sure what’s going on, but I suspect he was never HIV-infected.”

Dr. Michael P. Busch, director of the Blood Systems Research Institute and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, agreed with Kuritzkes' findings.

Again, these findings were based on all of the tests being performed on blood that actually belonged to Morrison. Many of the physicians on both sides of the debate have questioned whether or not all of the blood being tested had belonged to the same person, although there has yet to be proof of anything malicious.

Dr. Margaret Goodman, very well known in the boxing community and former chief ringside physician in Nevada, told The Times that the pathologist who conducted the 1996 tests for Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas had told her they were "unequivocally positive."  Morrison's own physician had confirmed Nevada's results in 1996.

Dr. William E. Lathan, the former medical director for the New York Athletic Commission, told the paper that he would use extra caution if there was even the slightest chance of a fighter being HIV positive.

“I’m not saying that Tommy is infectious; I’m saying that nobody can prove that he isn’t,” Lathan said.

Send News Tips and Comments To Mark Vester @ boxingscene@hotmail.com