Big-Strike
Capability
An Avid Bowler,
Thompson Eyes a Heavyweight Title
By John Scheinman
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, May 9, 2007; Page E01
Tony Thompson walked his 6-foot-5 frame up to the lane standing perfectly straight, paused briefly and glided into motion, letting go a sweet, fast roll that hooked in on the pocket and exploded in a strike.
On a recent Thursday morning, one of the top heavyweight boxers in the world was doing his usual thing, mixing it up with his bowling elders in the Washington Senior Wellness League at Marlow Heights Lanes in Temple Hills.
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Despite
being 29-1 with 17 knockouts, Tony Thompson has found it hard to get
top-flight opponents to fight him in the heavyweight division. (Jonathan
Newton - The Washington Post) |
"When I get through with boxing, I'd love to try out for the pro bowlers' tour," said Thompson, who also bowled in a recently concluded Friday league as well.
Younger and taller than everyone else, Thompson is an imposing but affable presence among the bowlers, most of whom are in their 60s, and they ride him just as mercilessly as anyone else who fails to pick up an easy spare.
Folks may like Thompson in their bowling league, but few professional boxers want to tangle with him. A fighter who did not step into a boxing gym until he turned 26, he has climbed to No. 3 in the World Boxing Council rankings, but has yet to participate in a big-money bout.
Beat enough people and keep hanging around, Thompson figures, and they have to acknowledge you. "If I'm winning, there's nothing you can say. They eventually have to give me a shot," said Thompson, who grew up in Northeast Washington and now lives in Fort Washington.
At 35, however, his window of opportunity is small. Top heavyweights fight into their 40s, collecting paychecks and serving as bench marks for the up-and-coming. While Thompson may feel at ease with an older crowd at the bowling lanes, in boxing he wants to compete against the best heavyweights in the world, win a title, clean up financially and get out.
His promoter, Nate Peake, has put together a tentative showcase for him on May 25 at the D.C. Armory against an opponent to be determined. But negotiations also are under way for Thompson to fight the World Boxing Organization's No. 4 contender, Luan Krasniqi, in a WBO title elimination bout in Germany on July 14. If the July 14 bout comes together, Thompson would not fight on the May 25 card at the armory.
With the heavyweight championship fractured into four -- or more -- pieces by the sport's various sanctioning bodies, Peake hopes Thompson can fight for a title within a year. The elimination bout would go a long way toward that goal.
"Tony's not a spring chicken," Peake said. "We're real close to the title, but we're not going to wait on the WBC. I'm trying to put him out there in the other sanctioning bodies."
The problem is that Thompson, who has a record of 29-1 with 17 knockouts, is what boxing old-timers call a stinker. He may bowl right-handed, but he boxes out of a dreaded southpaw stance, one that is difficult for right-handers to fight against because a lefty's punches come from a different side than orthodox fighters are trained to handle. Thompson is big and hard to hit, a cagey defensive fighter who appears able to absorb and disperse the power of his opponents like a martial arts master.
Worse, cable television network executives see Thompson as an invitation to reach for the remote. Free swinging he is not.
"Being a southpaw, I've met some resistance for opponents for
him," said Ken Hirshman, senior vice president and general manager at
Showtime. "But I haven't tried to shop Tony that hard, either. We've got a
lot of good American fighters who are at the top of their game, but they're
just not the Mike Tysons that can capture the sports fan."
Eric Bottjer, director of boxing operations for DRL Promotions, put together eight fights for Thompson as matchmaker for Cedric Kushner Productions between 2002 and 2005.
"He was probably averaging around $5,000 a fight," Bottjer said. "A heavyweight with that kind of record, it's not good. The problem was nobody wanted to fight him. . . . Because he wasn't rated [at the time], everyone we approached was like, 'Why should we fight that guy?' "
Thompson, who is married and has seven children, grew up playing football at Spingarn High School, dropped out, earned his GED and went to the Job Corps with the goal of becoming a police officer. That plan ended when, in 1995, he got into a fight at his apartment building that led to a misdemeanor assault conviction. He served no jail time and was placed on unsupervised probation for one year.
He eventually got a job with the nonprofit Downtown Business Improvement District's "SAMs" program -- safety and maintenance employees who helped revitalize the downtown by giving advice and help on the streets to visitors, making them feel more comfortable in the city.
"I wound up being a supervisor down there for six years," Thompson said. "I didn't want to quit that job. I loved that job. It was just so positive for D.C."
He happened upon his new career in 1997 at the Sport & Health Club in White Oak. One day he saw welterweight contender Derrell Coley working out there and the two got to talking.
"I said, 'I can box. I'm a big dude,' " Thompson remembered. "Even if I'm a bum, I can make some money."
A couple of years later Thompson began showing up regularly at the old Round One gym in Hillcrest Heights, where he met veteran trainer Tom Browner.
Under Browner's tutelage, wins piled up quickly, with his only loss coming in 2000 at the hands of another rising boxer named Eric Kirkland -- currently 18-2, with just one fight since 2003.
Thompson then began bouncing around from one promoter to another. The more he won, the harder it was to get fights. After beating contender Vaughn Bean, who was then 45-3 with 34 KOs, in September 2004, he didn't step into a ring again for a year.
"Everybody wants to be Mike Tyson and knock you out with one punch, but I didn't start this game when I was 17 or even 20," Thompson said. "The casual fans, they matter, but once they realize my story, they'll appreciate who I am. I'm effective. . . . I'm clumsy as hell, but I make it work for me. Effective clumsy. I'm going to do what I have to do to feed my family."
Thompson's biggest break came last year when he landed a fight with Dominick Guinn (28-4-1, 19 KOs), a onetime can't-miss contender who had lost a 12-round decision to James Toney.
Working with new trainer Barry Hunter, as well as Browner, Thompson methodically dominated Guinn in a nationally televised bout, showing all his usual defensive skills but this time displaying crisp punching and power.
In his most recent fight, Thompson defeated Timor Ibragimov, who was 21-1-1, and about a month ago WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev, a 7-foot, 320-pound giant, flew Thompson to Germany to help him prepare for an upcoming title fight, which he lost.
"I made $2,500 for six rounds of sparring; not bad," Thompson said. "If I ever had to fight him, I'd beat him. We sparred a couple hours after I got off the plane and I still got the better of him."
Peake said the sanctioning bodies appear in no hurry to make Thompson a mandatory contender for a title, "but I'm going to keep on pushing away, calling them, sending letters," he said. "One of the reasons we're doing the fight in D.C. is to get his home town behind him. We're hoping the public will demand it."
Thompson's nickname is "Tony the Tiger," but lately he has taken to calling himself "Spare Parts" because "I'm pretty old, and at my age I could use some," he said.
Thompson said that once he is through with the ring, he will turn his full attention to bowling and try to turn pro. Never mind that in that sport, too, he will have given the competition a sizable head start.
"If you put your mind to it, you can do anything you want," he said. "Everybody's always trying to put restrictions on things. If I can get my technique down, I can bowl as good as anybody."