22.02.07 – By Michael Marley/Boxingconfidential.com: Shocked, Bob Arum is shocked, indeed, to find out what an international media magnet Mexican contender Humberto Soto is. Media types are flocking to the Mountaineer Racetrack in Chester, West Virgnia, tonight (Thursday) for Soto’s Versus TV network main event bout against pro punching bad Humberto “Holy” Toledo…not really. Tim Dahlberg from the AP is winging in from his Las Vegas office. Dandy Dan Rafael is driving down from his DC area bunker to cover the happenings for ESPN. Print, radio, TV and Internet types are coming in from all across the country and from overseas to watch a four-rounder..
It’s the improbable, amazing ring comeback of Tommy “The Duke” Morrison that is bringing the media masses to the racetrack.
Ace matchmaker Sean “X Man” Gibbons, who worked many years with “The Duke” and shares Morrison’s Oklahoma roots, is on the scene and he told me that Tommy is healthy, buff and ready to rumble against a well-chosen tomato can named John “White” Castle.
“Tommy does look fabulous,” Gibbons said. “He weighed in at 220 and you would not know that he is age 38 by looking at him. He will knock this guy out, I think, but you have to wonder if Tommy can bridge the gap from four-rounders to 10 rounds. Maybe Tommy will replace ‘Butterbean’ as the new King of the Four Rounders.”
Arum, meanwhile, is taking a “Missouri” attitude. In other words, he has told Morrison “show me.”
“It’s a monster news event,” Arum told me. “But we shall see what shall see in the ring, Who knows what Tommy has left after all he has been through?”
In 1996, Morrison was tested “10 to 20 times” (according to reliable sources) and it was confirmed multiple times that he had HIV. Now it is 2007, and the same reliable sources say multiple sources say he is not afflicted with the HIV virus any longer. These new tests must have been persuasive because a strict boxing state like Nevada lifted its medical ban on “The Duke.”
Also on the Top Rank show is heavyweight Baby Joe Mesi who has had his own medical problems, specifically a brain injury. His comeback continues and, sitting Oklahoma, you have to wonder what promoter Tony Holden is thinking.
Holden used to promote both Morrison and Mesi.