Tommy Morrison's story has more sequels than Rocky, which included him in Sylvester Stallone's fifth and most forgettable portrayal of Hollywood's favorite fighter. The Rocky films are nostalgia, or at least a way for one of those classic channels to fill a day with a movie marathon.
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| Tommy Morrison now claims he's HIV-free, but seems reluctant to prove it. (Getty Images) |
Whatever the number, he is back, back all over again, in headlines about a proposed fight in Australia. Nervous Aussie medical officials vow Morrison will only be allowed to fight in Melbourne if he undergoes a blood test that proves he is HIV free. If that sounds familiar, it is, and that's the problem.
There have been tests and conflicting reports about whether they were positive, negative, false-positive, inconclusive or fraudulent since he underwent a battery of them at a lab in Phoenix before a comeback victory in February 2007 over somebody named John Castle in West Virginia.
West Virginia did not require blood tests. Morrison was licensed based on the results of the Phoenix tests. But that's where it gets confusing and thoroughly controversial. John Montano, longtime chief of the Arizona State Boxing Commission, witnessed the tests.
But by law, the results were never disclosed, because they were supposed to be a step in Morrison's application for an Arizona license. Morrison withdrew the application. He was supposed to fight in Phoenix at Dodge Theatre. He was even featured in ads put together by Phoenix promoter Peter McKinn.
But Morrison, who said he injured a hand, suddenly backed out of the fight and the application process. He headed to West Virginia, which reportedly reviewed the Phoenix tests and licensed him because apparently the documentation said he was HIV free.
But Montano told me for a story published in The Arizona Republic in June 2007 and again this week that his office has never forwarded the results of the blood work to West Virginia or any other state, including Texas, where Morrison was also supposed to fight on a card in Houston. He didn't, suddenly withdrawing from an advertised bout amid hazy and unconfirmed reports that he was about to be granted a Texas license. He never was.
Then, Morrison's former representative, Randy Lang, told me that the World Boxing Organization's one-time heavyweight champ was still HIV positive.
"Tommy has tested positive for HIV antibodies, and he always has," Lang told me for a newspaper story that ran in the Arizona Republic on June 9, 2007, before Morrison stepped into a mixed martial arts cage for a bizarre victory on an Indian reservation north of Phoenix.
Lang also alleged fraud in either the documentation or the samples from tests that Morrison underwent before West Virginia granted him a license. Morrison angrily countered that Lang had misrepresented himself as an attorney when he moved to Phoenix in his attempt at a comeback.
Amid all the charges and counter-charges, there has been one consistent thread: Morrison did not fight in a place where blood work was mandatory. The mixed martial arts mess happened on an Arizona reservation, Yavapai-Apache, which at the time did not fall under the Arizona State Boxing Commission's jurisdiction. That meant no blood test for a Cliff Castle Casino bout that included rules rewritten to accommodate Morrison. He was allowed to wear shoes; his opponent was not.
He later fought in Mexico, where again blood work was not necessary. The Association of Boxing Commissions sent a letter to Mexican authorities, urging that Morrison undergo a supervised blood test. But there never was one and Morrison went on to win on the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Jose Celaya undercard in Leon last February.
