At several times along the road, Pinklon Thomas found his life more than a bit off course.
By Brian D'Ambrosio
Life is a great grand canvas, and Thomas believes that you
should throw all the paint on it you can. “Something will stick,” he
says…
At this point in his life, Pinklon Thomas may enjoy himself and
relax. He has been battling environment or circumstances or people ever
since he could walk; certainly he’s entitled to savor the present.
Not many boxers can boast as Thomas can of devouring the delicious
taste of achievement in the form of the world heavyweight champion. And
far fewer of them confronted a hopeless, severe case of substance
addiction and surfaced victorious. Indeed, if there is one thing Thomas
has learned along the way it is that life is redemptive—it’s just not
easy.
“I’m excited about all the great things happening in my life right now,” says Thomas, 55, living near Orlando, Florida.
Thomas has no deterrents holding him back. At several times along the
road, he found his life more than a bit off course, the sorriest points
included committing robbery to support a voracious heroin addiction.
“I don’t want to take the bad with me or carry it,” says Thomas,
noted for his sartorial splendor of pink boots and ring trunks and a
terrific left jab. “I share it. I turned the bad into something good. I
share and give my knowledge, or if you want to call it my blessing. If
you don’t sow anything, you don’t reap anything. When I see alcohol
now, I look past it. But I’m still smart enough to take it all one day
at time.”
Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Life has its own hidden forces which
you can only discover by living.” As Thomas can attest, those forces can
be exacerbated by a dangerous mixture of environment and upbringing. A
product of the harshest streets of Pontiac, Michigan, Thomas first
experimented with heroin at 12, and he had a nasty habit when he was 14.
His early life was a terrible ordeal of survival—street fights, crime,
drugs, alcohol, pills. Most of the guys he associated with back then are
either dead or in jail.
When he was 17 he married, and within a year he and his wife—an army
enlistee—were living in Fort Lewis, Washington. At age 19, a friend
directed him to the local gym to meet with a trainer, who put
Thomas—high on heroin and speed at the time—in the ring with a fighter
named Big Ben. After two rounds, an exhausted Thomas was handed the
thumping of his life— one so extraordinary that it motivated him to
learn how to box.
Thomas began to run to the point of physical sickness. He temporarily
abandoned the drugs. Within six months, he had exacted his revenge on
Big Ben.
After three amateur fights, Thomas turned pro, in August of 1978. His
first spotlight bout came in January 1983 when he held South African
Gerrie Coetzee to a draw. Thomas triumphed four more times and had
climbed the rankings when Don King offered him the fight against WBC
heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon.
“There is no way to speak about where I come from and where I’ve been
without mentioning Don King,” says Thomas. “If it weren’t for Don King,
I wouldn’t be a contender or a champion. Before the [Bruce Grandham]
fight in Puerto Rico, King told me that if I won that fight, I was in
line for a championship fight. He held his end. Sincerely speaking, I
truly love him. He gave me the opportunity and I took advantage of it.
Nobody else would give me the opportunity that he gave me.”
August 31, 1984, Thomas Defeats Witherspoon
Pinklon Thomas used a cutting left jab to keep Tim Witherspoon
perplexed and score a majority 12-round decision to capture the title.
Thomas was favored on two of the ringside judges’ cards, while the other
judge had the fight even.
The undefeated Thomas (24-0-1, 20 KOs) scored points with the left
jab he repeatedly snapped in Witherspoon’s face as the champion battled
without luck to fight inside.
Thomas was able to control the early rounds but Witherspoon (18-1) became more aggressive after the middle rounds.
In a bout marked by extended periods of inactivity, Thomas seemed
content to use his jab to amass points. Witherspoon, at 217 pounds,
tried several times to get inside, but Thomas, who weighed 211, would
back off and hold off the champion with jabs. The type of jabbing that
led some boxing analysts to suggest that Thomas had the best left jab of
any heavyweight since Sonny Liston.
“One of the announcers, I think it was Larry Merchant,” says Thomas,
“he said that Witherspoon looked like a rag doll with a bobbing head.
That jab was my solid weapon. I still work out and I still work that
jab. I still work out and spar and hit the machines. My body is still
chiseled and I hope it stays it way.”
Referee Richard Steele admonished Witherspoon three times for hitting
Thomas with the back of his glove and once for a low blow. Except for
the seventh round, when both fighters landed hard head shots and swapped
leather for the final minute of the round, neither fighter was able to
land crisply or injure the other.
“You know, that is a great moment in my life,” says Thomas. “All the
time, the effort, and the energy, all of the broken hands (he broke both
of his hands in his second fight with Jerry Williams, in 1982), and
contract disputes, all of the training over and over again—it was all
worth it. I had five and a half years of contract disputes, of injuries,
suspensions, and setbacks, and to win that fight, what else more can
you ask for? It really comes down to how bad do you want it. Dreams will
come true if you pursue them. There is no sense of dreaming dreams if
you don’t try to make them come true, right?”
Upon winning the crown, Thomas talked about unifying the splintered
heavyweight division: Gerrie Coetzee held the WBA crown; Larry Holmes
the IBF championship. He never achieved that vision, losing the belt to
Trevor Berbick in his second title defense. He did, however, provide the
heavyweight division with one of its most memorable one-punch knockouts
in the modern era.
Wicked Right vs. Mike Weaver
It was the jab that won the day as Thomas seized the title from
Witherspoon, and it was the jab that established him as a 2-1 favorite
over Mike “Hercules” Weaver on June 15, 1985, at the Riviera Hotel, in
Las Vegas.
Leading up to the bout, not a single person, not even Weaver, 33, who
from March 1980 until December 1982, was the WBA heavyweight champion,
alluded to the right hand.
Just a little over two minutes into the first round, Thomas’s right
hand met the head of Weaver. Weaver was stunned, and Thomas let loose a
flood of arm punches and a hatchet-like right that dropped the
challenger.
In the eighth round, Thomas sensed that Weaver was wearying. He
caught Weaver with hard jabs, and baited him with short ones. Then, in a
flash, the champion’s right landed with violent clout. The high punch
slanted and crashed against Weaver’s left temple.
“Well, I hit him solid,” says Thomas. “I hit him solid, and that was it. He couldn’t stand back up, it was a good shot.”
After the unanimous decision title loss to Berbick in his next bout,
Thomas put together a string of three knockouts before challenging Mike
Tyson, May 30, 1987, for the WBC and WBA heavyweight titles.
Thomas had suffered a shoulder injury prior to the fight, and he says
that he felt the effects of that injury throughout the bout.
“My shoulder popped out in training,” says Thomas. “I was told to
stay off of it, and Angelo Dundee tried to get me to pull out. When I
got to Vegas, when I hit the speed bag or the heavy bag, I could tell
that my shoulder was shot.”
Although Tyson was the 5-1 favorite, Thomas was expected to be a
tough test. At 29, the ex-champion still had his punch, his legs, his
savvy experience, and a stiff, hard jab.
“Mike was killing guys,” says Thomas. “He was knocking them dead. But
I wanted to see how he handled the experience. He was fighting lower
class fighters and I wasn’t afraid of him.”
In the first round Thomas was rocked by right-left combinations to
the body and head and suffered puffiness around both eyes. But Thomas
survived that first round, and he says he began to find his comfort
level. Pretty soon, Thomas’s ring experience had stymied Tyson.
“Before the fight,” says Thomas, “I told Don King I was going to
stick and move and beat him. Come the second round, he couldn’t catch me
with nothing. I was tying him up, walking him backwards. I used my good
experience and good stiff jabs, and I was wearing him out. I had a good
jab going. But I couldn’t finish him. In the third round and the fourth
round and fifth, too, I was getting going.”
In the third, Tyson butted, clinched, and showed frustration.
Commentator Larry Merchant scored the round for Thomas, and claimed that
Thomas controlled the fourth and fifth. Throughout round five, Thomas
beat Tyson to the punch, and snapped off faster with his jab.
“At the end of the fifth, I thought I had him. I even told Mike after
the fifth that I had some bad intentions for him. But my glove split
and that cost me the fight. Right now, it’s in the records. But both me
and Mike know where this fight was headed.”
By the sixth round, Thomas had exposed some of Tyson’s defects —a
soft jab, a failure to break from a clinch or adjust to his opponent’s
lateral movements.
Right at the point in which Thomas felt as if he was beginning to
wrest the momentum and take control, Tyson finished off him off with a
slew of left hooks and vicious rights. Thomas was out at 2:00 of the
sixth. Dundee stepped in at the count of nine.
“I got hit with a shot, my shoulder dropped, and then came a bunch of
unanswered punches,” says Thomas. “I got up; I didn’t want to be
counted out. Tyson said afterwards that I was the second baddest man on
the planet.”
The remainder of Thomas’s career revolved around retirement followed
up by his succumbing to the lure of false hope and legitimate paydays.
Losses to Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe and Tommy Morrison followed.
Personal demons still haunted him.
Weeks after he lost to Evander Holyfield—sometime around February
1989—Thomas found himself on a bar stool in Miami in the early morning
hours. Slovenly and unshaven, he had been binging on cocaine and other
drugs and swigging booze for consecutive five days. He had dropped 13
pounds, and had neglected his personal hygiene; he had been wearing the
same clothes for just about one week straight.
“That was it for me,” says Thomas. “I decided to become one-hundred
percent clean. I’ve been one-hundred percent clean since February 10,
1989. Every February 10, which is my birthday, I celebrate. There is no
shame in my game.”
Project P.I.N.K.
Life is a great grand canvas, and Pinklon Thomas believes that you
should throw all the paint on it you can. “Something will stick,” he
says. “For me, boxing is over and done. Great opportunities are sitting
in front of me, including a documentary coming soon. I have the love of
my father and family.
And I’m putting a lot into the things that I have,
my wisdom, knowledge and understanding.”
Thomas dedicates much of his time motivating teens and at-risk youth;
he founded Project P.I.N.K. (an acronym for Pride In Neighborhood Kids)
as an outlet to foster youth mentorship. Thomas emphasizes shunning
drugs and peer pressure, as well as the importance of setting goals and
responding to mistakes and difficulties in life with aplomb and faith.
“I like to give back,” says Thomas. “I urge students to stay in
school, to stay away from drugs and find the determination to follow a
dream. The youth of today is our tomorrow.”
Thomas says he feels as well physically at this moment as he has had at any juncture in his life.
“I’m strong,” says Thomas. “I’ve got abs again, I mean, I can’t go out on the motivational circuit looking like a pig.”
And, in typically entertaining Pinklonian fashion, he can’t resist
tossing one final parting barb at his former nemesis and divisional
counterpart Larry Holmes.
“When that big peanut head Larry Holmes is out there talking, he looks like a big pig. I look like I’m ready to fight.”
