Okay I was being lazy and didn't post this article. Read it and read what is implied...ARE YOU POSITIVE?
After 11 years on the sidelines, Tommy Morrison claims that the positive HIV test that ended his boxing career was incorrect  and enough people believe him for the former WBO heavyweight champion to have been allowed to fight again. RON BORGES investigates
Photo shot
In February, Morrison was allwed to fight again - Get Big Pic
When is a positive a negative? Or, in the case of Tommy Morrison, when is a negative a positive? Those are the questions staring the 38-year-old former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion in the face as he pursues a comeback to boxing after testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, 11 years ago.
Or did he really test positive?
Morrison's comeback began on 22 February at the Mountaineer Racetrack in Chester, West Virginia, a state that does not require a blood test but where Morrison delivered several test results to prove a point much of the boxing world, and an even larger percentage of the real world, will find hard to believe. Tommy Morrison insists he is now HIV free after testing negative a number of times. So many times that someone finally let him back into the mother of all blood sports. How long he stays there is anyone's guess.
Morrison has said at various times the change was the work of God, the result of a more healthy lifestyle and/or because the test he took in Las Vegas two days before he was to fight Arthur "Stormy'' Weathers on 10 February 1996 produced a false positive for HIV. He claims that could have happened because he was taking steroids, over the counter dietary supplements and Interferon, a drug commonly used to fight hepatitis C. Whatever the reason, Morrison took two blood tests in Arizona in January in an effort to be licensed to box again and both came back negative. Where that left him was convinced he could become the first George Foreman of the New Millennium, an old man in a young man's sport coming back after a 10-year absence to show the boxing world he remains someone to be feared. Just not for the reasons he once was.
"I knew I was negative,'' Morrison (47-3-1, 41 KOs) said three weeks after knocking out a less than journeyman opponent named John Castle (4-2, 2 KO) in two rounds. "I found out two years after I got out of prison [in Arkansas, where he did 14 months on weapons and drug charges during his exile]. Steroids and a lot of other things can make you test positive. It disappeared from my system a couple of times when I cleaned up but I continued to use steroids so it came back.
"Now I'm living a different life and the testing has improved. Ten years ago they gave me a test that costs $10 and said I had HIV. I just took a test that costs $3,000 and it came back negative for HIV. I've passed four or five different tests. I even took and passed one that's not approved yet by the Food and Drug Administration [a government body that oversees those areas of American life]. Back in 1996 the tests were a coin toss. It's more sophisticated today. I was misdiagnosed.''
That is Morrison's story on a good day. At other times he has hinted at dark forces at work behind the 1996 test result that derailed both his career and his life. He has suggested a rival promoter might have doctored the test to prevent him from a planned showdown with Mike Tyson that was likely to have happened before the end of 1996. At other times he has said his newly developing faith in God opened him up to be healed. Whatever the reason, the string of negative HIV test results has left boxing commissions around America in a tight bind that was finally loosened by West Virginia's decision to let him fight.
"It's real simple,'' said Greg Sirb, who runs the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission and is past president of the Association of Boxing Commissions. "You bring him in. You have your medical people draw his blood and take it to an approved lab. If he's negative, he's negative. It's a fascinating case, really. Either you have HIV or you don't. He's getting up in age so there are other tests you'd have to conduct but in Pennsylvania we'd test his blood and if he's negative, he's negative. It's really simple to me.''
Or maybe not.
"Everybody hopes it was a false positive but you have to go beyond wishful thinking,'' adds Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. "Tommy did an antibody test in Arizona and it was negative and a PCR test (which involves DNA) and it was negative so it's hard to believe he has HIV. But even if he was medically cleared I'd want to see tapes of his fights. For every George Foreman there are 100 Jerry Quarrys [who died form the effects of early onset Alzheimer's believed to have been caused by head trauma suffered in the ring late in his career].''
One sceptic is Marc Ratner, the former executive director of the Nevada Commission. Ratner was in charge 11 years ago when he received Morrison's blood work and was shocked to see the results. It is a moment he vividly recalled more than a decade later.
"I can remember going up to Tommy at the press conference on Wednesday and telling him I needed his HIV test,'' Ratner said. "He said it was against his religion. I told him: 'Then you can't fight.' That just gave me the feeling something was not right.
''He finally took the test and when it came back positive we ran the second sample. I got that back around 3 or 4 in the afternoon the day of the fight. I called his trainer and said there was a problem with the blood test and he couldn't fight. Tommy didn't seem that shocked. I'm very concerned with this case. There's no question to me that on that Saturday Tommy Morrison was HIV positive. So where did the virus go?''
In those days a positive HIV test was a death sentence. The cocktail of drugs now used to control the spread of the virus has changed that considerably but at the time no one felt you would survive for long with HIV because the virus, which is transferred primarily by blood to blood contact, would soon mutate into full blown AIDS, a disease for which there remains no known cure.
Yet Morrison did fight one more time, on 3 November 1996 in Tokyo, where HIV testing was not required. He stopped Marcus Rhode at one minute, 38 seconds of the first round amidst a near-hysterical climate in which an opponent was difficult to find and so was a referee. Finally Frank Garza of Detroit agreed to work the match but considered wearing a facemask and claimed he'd been threatened by various sanctioning bodies that if he worked the fight his career was over. That did not turn out to be the case and the fight ended so quickly spilt blood was never an issue. Still, then president of the World Boxing Union Jon Robinson, who had sanctioned the main event featuring George Foreman but not the Morrison fight, was irate.
"That is like being an ostrich isn't it?'' Robinson said at the time. "Putting your head in the ground.''
It was believed Morrison would continue fighting outside the United States but instead he slipped into a long depression as his life spun out of control. He would, from time to time, reappear and declare himself HIV free but even after his then fiancée became pregnant with his child and said she had been having unprotected sex with Morrison long after he'd tested positive with no ill effects, he came nowhere near a boxing ring.
"I could fight in other countries but who wanted to get on a plane and travel halfway around the world?'' Morrison said. "It got too difficult and I sunk into a depression. There were so many things going on then it's no real surprise the way my life went.
"When I left Vegas [after the test created a media frenzy] they took me down a back elevator and through the kitchen like I was the President and put me on a red eye back to Tulsa. When I landed it was weird. I was walking to my car and I saw a lounge and a TV was on. There was my face. I had another test in Tulsa and it showed the same thing and a couple days later we held a press conference to make the announcement.''
That day Morrison said: "Many times in life I've had to pick myself up off the floor. This has certainly been one of those times.'' It was a time that would continue for a decade.
At his side then stood his friend and promoter Tony Holden, who broke the news to Morrison in Las Vegas. Although he says he continues to wish him well, they seldom speak and Holden is not among those in favour of his return to boxing because he has serious doubts about the latest test results and Morrison's fitness to fight again.
"I talked to Tommy once a week until a few months ago,'' Holden said. "We talked until I did an interview on an ESPN show about this. His attorney said I was not to call again. He said he really cares about Tommy. I was disgusted.
"I think he's [HIV] positive unless he's been healed by God, and I wish he has. I think the cocktail of anti-AIDS drugs he's taking masks the presence of the virus. That's why he's coming up negative. I took him to see one of the doctors who invented these cocktails. He's saved a lot of lives but he explained to me when you're taking those cocktails the virus level can become so low it won't show up on a test but it's still there.
"He shouldn't be fighting. I think he's going to get hurt. He's been off for way too long to come back in the heavyweight division. I'm tired of hearing about George Foreman. George Foreman was heavy but he lived a healthy life. Take the HIV out of it. I don't think a guy at 38 should start a comeback after 10 years off considering the things he's done to his body. In a boxing ring, you've got to be 100 per cent. You can't be 95 per cent because it's a very dangerous place. People die. Maybe I'm overcautious but I think somebody needs to be.''
American promoter Bob Arum was sceptical himself before he agreed to try and do for Morrison what he did for Foreman when he launched a comeback that became a fairy tale after Foreman became the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history by stopping Michael Moorer in the 10th round on 5 November 1994. Frankly, Arum knows, this one may not be.
"I went to my doctor and he told me there had been cases of HIV disappearing,'' Arum claimed, "so the next thing was how do I know these were real tests? I went to John Montoya [who heads the Arizona commission]. He had the blood drawn and tested. It came back negative. He had a test that costs $3,000. It came back negative. So I'm absolutely convinced his blood will not infect anyone. He's not infectious.
"Over a period of time we'll see if he can still fight. That's a separate issue. But having experienced George Foreman I know enough not to write him off. His first fight back he was slow. Tommy looked terrible and he wasn't fighting Jack Dempsey but he can still punch. We'll see if he can still fight. It's really a compassionate thing we're doing. Who knows?''
Becoming the next Foreman is Morrison's dream but it comes after not only the ravages of time and a difficult life but also with a dark shadow over him even after repeatedly testing negative the past few years. Will top rated heavyweights get in with an opponent who once tested positive for HIV? No one can be sure but in the risky business of boxing money talks.
When Castle was asked before the fight if he was concerned with being infected if Morrison was cut, he told Tim Smith of the New York Daily News: "Wouldn't you be?'' He fought any way after Morrison showed him three negative blood tests. Yet after the bout, Castle's trainer, Wesley Ramsey, admitted he would have stopped the fight if Morrison suffered a serious cut rather than the small one under his eye which came after Castle dominated him in the first round. Yet not even those concerns cause Morrison the slightest moment of hesitation as he ponders what he hopes will be a spring schedule of at least two more bouts before he faces stiffer opposition.
"People might raise questions but as long as the blood tests come back negative they'll see this for what it is,'' Morrison said. "I've jumped through enough hoops to change my name to Hoops. This is not going to happen over night but the last 10 years I've been healing while other guys have been getting hit. I'm a smarter, more relaxed fighter. I think I'll be a better, more methodical fighter.''
Before Morrison fights again he first must recover from a cracked rib sustained in his win. Then he must show vastly improved cardiovascular conditioning, according to Arum's matchmaker, Bruce Trampler, the guy who brought this idea to Arum.
"I was quite sceptical when I heard he was claiming he tested negative,'' Trampler said. "My gut reaction was you can't test negative if you're positive. I went to watch him train in Arizona and he was pitiful but it's a short flight from Vegas so I went back a few times and kept seeing progress so I talked to Arum. He threw me out of his office.
"'He's POSITIVE!' he kept yelling. But he called his internist and he told him there are cases where the virus has left the body. Nobody knows why. Tommy passed all the blood tests so we decided to see if we could get him on a card in Phoenix in January. They were ready to license him but he hurt his hand so it got postponed until February.
"West Virginia doesn't require blood tests but they got advice from the ABC. You didn't need an expert to read his test results. He was the most tested guy on that card and that includes Joe Mesi. Tommy had no wind. He was gasping for air so I told him he has to hit the roads. He was running second in that fight until he landed that left hook.''
That left hook once made Morrison a commodity so hot he co-starred in one of the Rocky films alongside Sylvester Stallone. It also made him WBO champion when he beat Foreman but soon after he became a dethroned one when he was upset in one round by underdog Michael Bentt. That cost him a shot at Tyson and two years later he was stopped in six rounds by Lennox Lewis. Soon after he travelled to Las Vegas for a tune-up fight and left with an apparent death sentence he now insists he's beaten.
"It's not a real big surprise the way my life went after that,'' Morrison said. "People thought I was in denial. My own family thought I was crazy but God rewards those who are faithful. I don't remember a day that wasn't bad the last 101/2years. It was a very dark time for me. People would see me in airports and say: 'Dude, I thought you were dead.' I didn't have a friend in the world. I knew I wasn't HIV positive but they threw me out of boxing.
"As long as I test negative there's no reason anyone should be afraid to fight me. The Arizona Commission watched them take the blood out of my arm. The test came back negative. People are sceptical because they think this has never happened before but it has. Once I get the ball rolling it will all come out. There's no denying there was a mistake made.''
Tommy Morrison gets no quarrel about that. The question is what kind of mistake. A positive one or a negative one?
and love seeing them win.
