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To Hell and Back
Everybody remembers bits and pieces of information about Tommy Morrison -- tough white kid with a standout left hook who defeated George Foreman, was massacred by Ray Mercer. Co-starred in ROCKY V. Announced he was HIV-positive. Got into trouble with the law. Dropped out of sight.
Not terribly trusting of reporters, he's rarely interviewed. But when he decides to talk to you and you fill in some of the blanks, you discover there's more to Tommy Morrison than you thought.
He's been to hell and back, been screwed and tattooed, been up, been down, is now, at age 35, living quietly in Sparta, Tenn., working on his autobiography, looking for a publisher, and attending acting school. Because he was a famous white heavyweight in a fighting fraternity largely made up of **********, lots of fans assumed he started out with some kind of silver spoon. Uh uh.
Morrison began entering tough man contests AT AGE 13 to put food on the table. He was living in Jay, Olka., when his parents divorced. "My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I had to quit school and get a job at 13," he explained.
"I worked on an oil rig, at construction, and meanwhile my mother completed nursing school. I got exposed to a lot of stuff that year, including tough man contests."
Tommy, raised in a boxing family, first put on the gloves when he was seven. He fought in 242 amateur fights, "most by the time I was 13."
After a year, his mother completed training for a nursing license and Tommy was able to re-enroll in school. Meanwhile, he knocked around different locations on weekends following the tough man circuit through Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas.
His knockabout life was similar to the early days of the great Jack Dempsey, who followed a trail through mining camps and railroad yards, doing back-breaking labor by day and fighting in barroom contests at night for extra cash.
Back in Jay, Morrison excelled in high school football. "But then my senior year in high school my mom said she wanted me to fight in the Golden Gloves. My brother had won the Golden Gloves in Kansas City. We had lots of fighters in my family. I knew eventually it would be my turn.
"Oddly enough, it was something I was gifted at to some extent. But I never had a passion for it." What is his passion?
"Acting," he answered immediately. He had a three-picture deal when he performed in ROCKY V, but he was so busy training and fighting, he just let it expire.
In 1988, his senior year, he won the Kansas City Golden Gloves. In the Olympic trials, he advanced to the finals and lost to Army Sergeant Ray Mercer, eight years his senior.
Three years later Morrison would challenge then-WBO champ Mercer in Atlantic City, where Mercer caught him with a huge shot in the fifth round and knocked him unconscious with a vicious combination. It was one of the most brutal heavyweight knockouts ever seen on TV.
But Morrison was no easy mark. Before losing to Mercer, he'd stopped James (Quick) Tillis and Pinklon Thomas, both in round one. In 1993 he decisioned Foreman for the vacant WBO heavyweight title. Before he was through Morrison, whose final record was 46-3-1 (40), would stop Joe Hipp, Carl Williams, Michael Bentt, Bryan Scott and Razor Ruddock. He had a natural, one-of-a-kind, bread-and-butter hook that could end a fight at any time.
"Whenever I fought, the guy's entire career hinged on me," he recalled. "I felt like I was always subject to 10 times more criticism just because I was white. This great white hope thing was never down my alley. I always look forward to the day fighters can be recognized for their skill, not the color of their skin. But I was not in control of that."
Morrison's proudest moment may have been his 1992 victory in Reno, Nev. over tough journeyman Hipp. Morrison was cut, broke both hands, and his jaw was so severely fractured the bone separated in two. But he refused to quit and stopped Hipp in round nine.
"I had a three-fight deal signed with Don King. It was a $38.5 million contract, and the third fight was going to be with (Mike) Tyson after he got out of prison. I know I would have beaten him. That would have been my last fight - win, lose, or draw."
Then his world collapsed. The Nevada commission had just begun to test for HIV. Morrison tested positive in February 1996. A hetero***ual who'd never injected drugs, he figured he was infected by a woman. But which one? "Wilt Chamberlain had nothing on me," he said. "Infidelity was one of my biggest battles in life. I couldn't overcome it. It probably helped my first marriage crumble."
Morrison announced the lab results at a press conference in Tulsa. When he got back to Jay an hour later, the highway signs reading, "Home of Tommy Morrison" were already torn down. "My best friends wouldn't even wave at me," he recalled. "These people were just complete idiots. Uneducated people. No class at all."
He came home from a ski trip to discover his house had burned down. He moved to Fayeteville, Ark. "I had a lot of old friends there. It seemed they were all into the drug scene. I tried it for a couple months, didn't like it, and that was that."
He was stopped several times on traffic offenses, including DUI. Meanwhile, a "friend" was supposed to be getting a security system installed in Morrison's Corvette.
"He was cooking up speed and trading with this other guy for *******, I found out later." His friend kept stalling on returning the car, so Morrison just took it back. Police had staked out the man's house. They followed Morrison and found "either 11 or 18 grams of ******* in the trunk, depending on which report you believed," Morrison said.
He had a permit to carry a firearm. Having the drugs and gun together got him charged with six felonies, each punishable by 40 to life. He copped a plea and in January 2000 was sentenced to two years. In prison, another con leaned on him, and Morrison "busted him up some. They put me in the hole for awhile." After that, "I was really well-liked among the inmates."
But not among guards. They despised him for being famous, for being a drug felon. He said they repeatedly planted contraband tobacco in his cell. He didn't smoke. Each time his sentence was extended two months. He spent much time in the hole and in a lockup with mentally ill inmates who "did the thorazine shuffle," too zoned out on medication to speak.
To keep himself from going crazy, he told himself, "I did a lot of things in my life I didn't get caught for."
Eventually, through correspondence, he found an ordinary citizen who took his case to the corrections department, and he was moved to another institution. He served 14 months altogether.
The ex-millionaire's bankroll was down to $11,000. His wife, who'd divorced him, ended up with appreciably more, he said. He gets a disability check and his second wife, Dawn, works as an interior designer.
He takes a drug ****tail and has never showed HIV symptoms. His wife had a son through artificial insemination, and they recently discovered a new lab process that will "wash" his semen so he and Dawn can safely conceive his child. That would be his fourth.
Tommy Morrison remains a boxing fan and talks knowledgeably about what's going on in the game.
"I spent two Christmases in prison," he said. "It changed me as an individual." The changes, he said, were positive ones.
Written by Ivan Goldman
Everybody remembers bits and pieces of information about Tommy Morrison -- tough white kid with a standout left hook who defeated George Foreman, was massacred by Ray Mercer. Co-starred in ROCKY V. Announced he was HIV-positive. Got into trouble with the law. Dropped out of sight.
Not terribly trusting of reporters, he's rarely interviewed. But when he decides to talk to you and you fill in some of the blanks, you discover there's more to Tommy Morrison than you thought.
He's been to hell and back, been screwed and tattooed, been up, been down, is now, at age 35, living quietly in Sparta, Tenn., working on his autobiography, looking for a publisher, and attending acting school. Because he was a famous white heavyweight in a fighting fraternity largely made up of **********, lots of fans assumed he started out with some kind of silver spoon. Uh uh.
Morrison began entering tough man contests AT AGE 13 to put food on the table. He was living in Jay, Olka., when his parents divorced. "My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I had to quit school and get a job at 13," he explained.
"I worked on an oil rig, at construction, and meanwhile my mother completed nursing school. I got exposed to a lot of stuff that year, including tough man contests."
Tommy, raised in a boxing family, first put on the gloves when he was seven. He fought in 242 amateur fights, "most by the time I was 13."
After a year, his mother completed training for a nursing license and Tommy was able to re-enroll in school. Meanwhile, he knocked around different locations on weekends following the tough man circuit through Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas.
His knockabout life was similar to the early days of the great Jack Dempsey, who followed a trail through mining camps and railroad yards, doing back-breaking labor by day and fighting in barroom contests at night for extra cash.
Back in Jay, Morrison excelled in high school football. "But then my senior year in high school my mom said she wanted me to fight in the Golden Gloves. My brother had won the Golden Gloves in Kansas City. We had lots of fighters in my family. I knew eventually it would be my turn.
"Oddly enough, it was something I was gifted at to some extent. But I never had a passion for it." What is his passion?
"Acting," he answered immediately. He had a three-picture deal when he performed in ROCKY V, but he was so busy training and fighting, he just let it expire.
In 1988, his senior year, he won the Kansas City Golden Gloves. In the Olympic trials, he advanced to the finals and lost to Army Sergeant Ray Mercer, eight years his senior.
Three years later Morrison would challenge then-WBO champ Mercer in Atlantic City, where Mercer caught him with a huge shot in the fifth round and knocked him unconscious with a vicious combination. It was one of the most brutal heavyweight knockouts ever seen on TV.
But Morrison was no easy mark. Before losing to Mercer, he'd stopped James (Quick) Tillis and Pinklon Thomas, both in round one. In 1993 he decisioned Foreman for the vacant WBO heavyweight title. Before he was through Morrison, whose final record was 46-3-1 (40), would stop Joe Hipp, Carl Williams, Michael Bentt, Bryan Scott and Razor Ruddock. He had a natural, one-of-a-kind, bread-and-butter hook that could end a fight at any time.
"Whenever I fought, the guy's entire career hinged on me," he recalled. "I felt like I was always subject to 10 times more criticism just because I was white. This great white hope thing was never down my alley. I always look forward to the day fighters can be recognized for their skill, not the color of their skin. But I was not in control of that."
Morrison's proudest moment may have been his 1992 victory in Reno, Nev. over tough journeyman Hipp. Morrison was cut, broke both hands, and his jaw was so severely fractured the bone separated in two. But he refused to quit and stopped Hipp in round nine.
"I had a three-fight deal signed with Don King. It was a $38.5 million contract, and the third fight was going to be with (Mike) Tyson after he got out of prison. I know I would have beaten him. That would have been my last fight - win, lose, or draw."
Then his world collapsed. The Nevada commission had just begun to test for HIV. Morrison tested positive in February 1996. A hetero***ual who'd never injected drugs, he figured he was infected by a woman. But which one? "Wilt Chamberlain had nothing on me," he said. "Infidelity was one of my biggest battles in life. I couldn't overcome it. It probably helped my first marriage crumble."
Morrison announced the lab results at a press conference in Tulsa. When he got back to Jay an hour later, the highway signs reading, "Home of Tommy Morrison" were already torn down. "My best friends wouldn't even wave at me," he recalled. "These people were just complete idiots. Uneducated people. No class at all."
He came home from a ski trip to discover his house had burned down. He moved to Fayeteville, Ark. "I had a lot of old friends there. It seemed they were all into the drug scene. I tried it for a couple months, didn't like it, and that was that."
He was stopped several times on traffic offenses, including DUI. Meanwhile, a "friend" was supposed to be getting a security system installed in Morrison's Corvette.
"He was cooking up speed and trading with this other guy for *******, I found out later." His friend kept stalling on returning the car, so Morrison just took it back. Police had staked out the man's house. They followed Morrison and found "either 11 or 18 grams of ******* in the trunk, depending on which report you believed," Morrison said.
He had a permit to carry a firearm. Having the drugs and gun together got him charged with six felonies, each punishable by 40 to life. He copped a plea and in January 2000 was sentenced to two years. In prison, another con leaned on him, and Morrison "busted him up some. They put me in the hole for awhile." After that, "I was really well-liked among the inmates."
But not among guards. They despised him for being famous, for being a drug felon. He said they repeatedly planted contraband tobacco in his cell. He didn't smoke. Each time his sentence was extended two months. He spent much time in the hole and in a lockup with mentally ill inmates who "did the thorazine shuffle," too zoned out on medication to speak.
To keep himself from going crazy, he told himself, "I did a lot of things in my life I didn't get caught for."
Eventually, through correspondence, he found an ordinary citizen who took his case to the corrections department, and he was moved to another institution. He served 14 months altogether.
The ex-millionaire's bankroll was down to $11,000. His wife, who'd divorced him, ended up with appreciably more, he said. He gets a disability check and his second wife, Dawn, works as an interior designer.
He takes a drug ****tail and has never showed HIV symptoms. His wife had a son through artificial insemination, and they recently discovered a new lab process that will "wash" his semen so he and Dawn can safely conceive his child. That would be his fourth.
Tommy Morrison remains a boxing fan and talks knowledgeably about what's going on in the game.
"I spent two Christmases in prison," he said. "It changed me as an individual." The changes, he said, were positive ones.
Written by Ivan Goldman
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