Tommy Morrison's Fake Fight

Former heavyweight belt-holder Tommy Morrison is apparently in denial about being HIV-positive and still looking to get back into boxing. Thankfully no commission is going to touch him with a ten-foot pole.

Reading Sam Mellinger’s recent piece for the Kansas City Star piece is humbling experience for those of who deign to write about the sport:

Tommy has spots all over his hands and arms. They’re distracting when you meet him. You can’t miss them. He blames his boxer puppy. Only the spots aren’t bite marks or scratches, and so now Tommy says they’re mosquito bites. Mosquitoes love him, he says.

Except it’s the middle of winter, and the marks look a lot like the HIV symptom of lesions or Kaposi’s sarcoma.

Tommy wants to talk to you about HIV. It’s a farce, he says. An invention by a scientist who wanted to make money, a lie kept alive by a government that wants to scare people. He doesn’t have HIV, never did, and besides, it’s not the deadly disease it’s been made out to be.

What he says sounds crazy, but there is an obvious and undeniable fact sitting in front of you: Tommy Morrison is still alive and apparently healthy, 15 years after testing positive for HIV. Magic Johnson tested positive five years before Tommy, but Johnson has wealth and the very best medical care.

Take notes, kids. This is how it’s done.