By Geno McGahee
In the 1990s, the heavyweight division was full of great talent including Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Ray Mercer, Riddick Bowe, Razor Ruddock, George Foreman and Tommy “The Duke” Morrison, a heavyweight that received some attention for his role in ROCKY V as Tommy “The Machine” Gunn. In the film, he won gold and that was the goal when he stepped into the ring and captured the WBO title in a time when the division was very tough.
TOMMY, a 30 for 30 film from ESPN, chronicles the life and death of one of the most interesting fighters to ever lace up the gloves. Starting with the tough man contests at age 15, Morrison would beat up men much older and become victorious in almost all of the contests he partook in, leading to a successful amateur career and then into the professional ranks.
Moving up the ranks and being featured on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights with regularity, Morrison would catch the eye of Sylvester Stallone and it would lead to the big role and the big push of the Morrison career. After the film, he would return to the ring, but the fight behind the scenes was the story. Constant partying and womanizing would hurt his training and that was on display in his first world title shot when he lost by knockout to Ray Mercer.
The rebuild would occur and Morrison would beat some of the better contenders of the time like Carl Williams and Joe Hipp, leading to another title crack against George Foreman. In one of his best performances, Morrison used his speed and boxing ability to a unanimous decision and lined up an 8 million dollar payday against Lennox Lewis, but it wasn’t to be…at least immediately. A title defense against the lightly regarded Michael Bentt should have been an easy knockout, but Morrison’s partying, lack of training and lack of respect for Bentt, led to a reckless attack and a first round knockout loss and a loss of an 8 million dollar payday.
As they did before, Morrison would return and rebuild, putting together a record of 7-0-1, 6 KO’s, leading to a bout with Lennox Lewis and it would not end well. Lewis, arguably the best heavyweight of his era, easily destroyed Morrison in five rounds, and a rebuild would be planned again, leading to an eventual showdown with Mike Tyson. Morrison would test positive for HIV and his boxing career as a serious contender would be over and without boxing, Morrison had nowhere to go.
Morrison’s life after being diagnosed with HIV could have gone two ways. The way that Morrison wanted it to go was to be a role model and to prevent others from getting the disease and going down the roads he went down. The other way was a nosedive into drugs, drinking, and insanity, and sadly, that was the way that Morrison’s final chapter was written.
Seeing “The Duke” in his last days was difficult. Meth and other drugs took everything that was left away from him and then a period of HIV denial sent him to his grave. 30 for 30’s TOMMY is a tremendous look at what made the former WBO heavyweight champion tick and showed the building blocks to what would be a sad ending.
ESPN did one hell of a job with this film and there are some revelations that I was unaware of prior to watching this and you can’t help but to admire but also have some disappointment in the man that could have gone so much farther in the sport. This is an amazing film all around.
Tommy “the Duke” Morrison left boxing with a record of 48-3-1, 42 KO’s, and left a huge impression on the boxing fans of the 1990s, which was just a great time for the sport. TOMMY captures that time, the fighters, and mostly, the tragic life of Tommy Morrison. I highly recommend it.
