A FUNNY thing happened to Tim Tomashek when he went to watch Tommy Morrison defend his heavyweight championship. He ended up fighting Tommy Morrison for his heavyweight championship.
“I was done with work and I got a call,” says Tomashek, casting his mind back to August 1993.
“They said: ‘This guy [Morrison’s scheduled opponent Mike Williams] isn’t making the press conferences.’
“They were getting a bit nervous and they wanted a replacement in case this guy took off. My manager, Pete Susens, told me: ‘You will get $2,500 just to turn up.’ I went straight to the airport…
“Mike Williams was in the arena and I thought: ‘Nobody pulls out of a world title fight.’ He pulled out an hour before!
“I was sitting in the crowd, drinking a beer. All of a sudden, I see Pete running towards me.
“He said: ‘Get back to the hotel, you’re fighting Tommy Morrison for the heavyweight championship of the world in an hour !’
“I said: ‘Let me finish my beer first.’
“I went back to the hotel and got the trunks I wore from the fight before. They still had blood on them and didn’t smell too good – That’s why Tommy kept away from me for a couple of rounds!
“I wasn’t the biggest puncher, but I knew I could hang with people. I was a defensive master; pretty stylish. Don’t laugh!”
For all his self-deprecation, Tomashek was only stopped four times in a colourful 65-fight career he says he embarked upon with a cavalier “have blood, will travel” mindset.
Now 59, Tomashek lives happily among “the mill workers and beer drinkers” of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he’s spent most of his life.
“It’s great,” he says, and talking to Tomashek, most things in his world are.
Susens and everyone else Tomashek talks about are “the greatest” or “a legend” – and then there’s the English.
“You’re ringing me from England?” he asks. “I can’t wait to tell my mom an English gent rang me for an interview. Can you ring her and tell her about the story?
“In the mid-1980s, we used to think, ‘if you want a win, fight an English guy,’ but you guys turned it around. You’re as hard as nails. I’m proud of you guys.
“I love the English. The Marquis of Queensberry Rules, huh? It’s unbelievable how the English came up with that.”
Not that Tomashek always obeyed those rules.
“I was only a cruiserweight,” he says. “I would come in at 202-203lbs, but to make the money, I would fight anybody.
“I fought some big dudes. I had to hit them in the privates. I got told: ‘If you keep hitting them in the privates, we will take money off you.’”
But Tomashek did know how to box.
“I got beat up by a girl in school,” he says. “I peed my pants and my dad said: ‘We had better get him to the gym.’
“I went back to normal sports for a while and after high school I hit it hard.”
He went on to have around 50 amateur bouts, making his mark in regional Golden Gloves championships and winning a bronze at an Olympic Festival tournament where his teammates included Gerald McClellan, described as “my great buddy”.
“You can’t eat a trophy,” says Tomashek, “so what the hell, I turned pro.
“Pete Susens told me: ‘You won’t be a world champion’ and I said: ‘Thank you, Pete!’
“He looked after me, but there’s not too much fighting around here. It’s pretty quiet. I could never fight around here.
“Aaron Pryor boxed here [in 1990 while legally blind in his left eye] and that made the commission look bad. I ended up fighting in every small state in America.”
Susens was right about Tomashek – he was no world beater.
In 1990 and 1991, Tomashek did try to break through and was beaten by Johnny Du Plooy, Anaclet Wamba, Jerry Halstead and Francois Botha. Only Du Plooy stopped him.
Tomashek has an unusual explanation for the loss.
“I was glad he knocked me out,” he says, “so I didn’t have to smell him.”
Tomashek has similar memories of a Russian he lost to at the Olympic Festival.
“If I see him again, I will stay away from him,” said Tim. “Sure, he could fight, but the smell… he smelled like a dead raccoon!”
Tomashek doesn’t have any recollections of Botha’s odour, only his fists.
“I was a quick starter,” he says, “but he started quicker than me.
“In the first round, I thought: ‘This is going to be an ass-whupping – and it’s my ass that’s going to get whupped.’”
After the 10-round points loss in November 1991, Tomashek had a rethink.
“I started working and taking Mid West fights,” he says.
“I would finish work, jump in a car and drive for three or four hours, catch a beer and then fight.”
This lifestyle and level of opposition suited Tomashek rather better.
He won his next eight – against opponents with a combined record of 19-42 – and then came the call to be on standby for Morrison in Kansas City.
Morrison was making the first defence of the WBO title he had won by outpointing George Foreman 12 weeks earlier and was being steered towards Lennox Lewis, the WBC champion.
Morrison tipped the scales at a solid 226lbs, while Tomashek was a blubbery 205lbs, and after the bell went, he gave a disjointed and eccentric performance, moving this way and that and darting in with a flurry of left hands.
“I had to try to outwork him,” says Tomashek, “because I was never going to knock these big bastards out.
“Tommy was surprised. He was used to knocking people out in one or two rounds, but that night, he was up against a different cat – me.
“Tommy knew he couldn’t go into my web, because if he did, there was no way out.
“I’m joking! He was too big. If he had hit me in the body, I would have puked. I had a couple of beers in me.”
Morrison looked unimpressed – and so was the commentator.
“Scheduled for 12,” he said in the opening moments, “it will certainly go much less.”
Given the circumstances and the gulf in size and class, Tomashek did much better than could have been expected of him.
“I had no gameplan,” he says. “There wasn’t time to think of one. I just did the best I could.”
Late in the second, heads cracked together. Morrison was to blame, but when Tomashek raised his glove in a ‘no-hard-feelings’ gesture, he took a solid whack on the chin. Morrison was irritated.
There were some boos from the crowd during the third round, but watching the fight back on YouTube, it’s hard to understand why. Though obviously outgunned, Tomashek spent most of the round standing in front of Morrison throwing punches.
The shots bounced off the champion and, when Morrison blasted Tomashek to the body, he clearly felt it.
The fourth was a really hard round for Tomashek as Morrison started to get through with clean punches to his chin, sending shivers down his legs.
Tommy opened up, sending Tomashek to his knees.
Up quickly, the bell came to his rescue and as he had done at the end of the previous three rounds, Tomashek went back to his stool with his chest puffed out, shaking his right glove in triumph.
Seconds later, the fight was over after corner decided Tomashek should take no more.
“I got $40,000 for that,” he says, “but after taxes and deductions I came out with about $15,000.
“It’s a hard game. Still, it was better than fighting for a six-pack.”
Or $100 and some chicken wings.
That’s what Tomashek says he was paid for his fight with ex-light-heavyweight and cruiserweight champion Bobby Czyz in August 1995, a fifth-round stoppage defeat.
“When I fought Bobby, I was shot,” he says. “I wasn’t interested any more.
“I got paid about 100 bucks and six chicken wings from KFC. It was the greatest.”
Tomashek did carry on after the Czyz defeat and posted back-to-back stoppages before retiring.
“I don’t have any dependants and at the moment I’m not doing too dang much,” he says.
“I’m just looking out for my little nieces and nephews. They love me. My brother says it’s because we have the same mentality.”
Uncle Tim has plenty of stories to tell his nieces and nephews – when they are old enough.
He said: “I tried to do the best I could and the crowd seemed to enjoy it – especially the women.
“I always was a good-looking bastard – before the fight. After the fight, I looked like the Elephant Man!
“But that’s OK. I did my best.”
