Tony Tubbs is pushing 70 now, a ghost haunting the fringes of the heavyweight division's memory. The quick hands that once danced around Greg Page are arthritic and slow. The waistline that always threatened to betray him has long since won the battle. Tubbs shuffle-walks through the streets of Cincinnati, a former world champion in a city that long ago forgot how to care about their aging hero.
It's been nearly two decades since Tubbs climbed through the ropes for the last time to grind out a six-round decision over undersized club fighter Adam “Golden Dragon” Smith (career record 6-19-1) at a hotel in Morgantown, WV. Back in 2006, he was already a relic, a 47-year-old punchline fighting for rent money and child support payments for his many children. Now he's just another old-timer, spinning yarns about the glory days to any boxing writer who'll listen.
The kid from the projects had it all once. Two hundred and forty amateur wins against just 13 losses. An Olympic dream derailed only by Jimmy Carter's Moscow boycott in 1980. Tubbs turned pro instead, those lightning fists carving up the heavyweight division like a Thanksgiving turkey. He took the WBA strap off Greg Page in 1985, avenging six amateur losses with one professional win. But his reign was shorter than Don King’s temper.
Tubbs lost the belt to Tim Witherspoon nine months later, showing up fat and unfocused instead of smooth and sleek. It was always his way—talent to burn but discipline in short supply. The drugs and the pounds piled up faster than his win column. By the time Tyson steamrolled him in Tokyo in '88, Tubbs was well on the downslope, his legacy secured as a cautionary tale of squandered potential.
That Tyson fight still haunts him. "He hit me to the body and then came up and cut me with the left hook," Tubbs told Ted Kluck in the book Facing Tyson. "My corner told me to stay down, but a fighter always wants to fight. I feel like I could have gotten up and used my jab to keep him off me. I knew my boxing skills would get me through. His power and speed were devastating, but I was the only one who ever went to the body against him." But Tubbs never made it past the second. That's the story of his career—always an excuse, always a "what if."
He kept fighting long past his expiration date, chasing paydays in cheap casinos and converted high school gyms. In '93, Tubbs found himself in a circus tent beside a Mississippi casino, slugging it out in a toughman-style tournament billed as "The People's Choice World Heavyweight Superfights." It was a freakshow of has-beens and never-weres, ex-cons and ex-champs alike, and Pat Putnam’s Sports Illustrated story about the event remains destination reading.
Tubbs waddled through four fights in one night, his quick hands and ring smarts carrying him past younger, hungrier opponents. He outpointed Jose Ribalta and Tyrell Biggs, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist who once fancied himself the next Ali. "Biggs had the best footwork and used all of the ring. I had to chase him down," Tubbs told Putnam. He took home $170,000 for his troubles—a far cry from the million-dollar purse promised, but enough to keep the wolves from the door for a while longer.
His last real hurrah came in 2004, outpointing a then-undefeated prospect named Brian Minto (career record 42-11, including a big fight against Dillian Whyte in 2015). It was a final glimpse of the boxer Tubbs could’ve been, if only he'd gotten out of his own way. But even then, at 46, he was chasing pipe dreams of cracking the top 10 and landing one last title shot. His new manager was some kid named Clint Calkins who used to write him fan letters, both of them deluding themselves that the boxing world was clamoring for a middle-aged contender who hadn't had a truly meaningful win since the first Bush administration.
Now Tubbs lives off Social Security, training kids at the local gym when his body allows. He's got 16 children—eight boys and eight girls, he'll tell you proudly. Some say the number's closer to 20. He estimates he's got 25 to 30 grandchildren, but who's counting? Most of his money went to the upkeep of all those kiddos, leaving him with little but memories and regrets.
On good days, Tubbs will tell writers he's been clean for years, found God, become a role model. He'll boast about sparring with Muhammad Ali, helping The Greatest prepare for his rematch with Leon Spinks. "Muhammad Ali taught me a lot," Tubbs told The Ring in 2017. "I miss him today, I really do. When Muhammad lost to Leon Spinks, he was getting older, his reflexes were getting bad. He needed me because I had speed."
Maybe so. But it's now hard to see him as anything but a warning, a once-promising fighter reduced to a footnote in boxing history. He had the skills to be an all-time great. Instead, he'll be remembered, if at all, as just another guy Tyson knocked out before the Buster Douglas upset.
Tubbs, the occasional local news reports about his goings-on tell us, still shows up at the gym sometimes, his big, weathered body barely contained by sweatpants and an old t-shirt. He'll shadow box in front of the mirror, those old reflexes firing for a few fleeting moments. You can almost see the fighter he used to be, the one who outboxed Riddick Bowe in 1991 and gave Tyson trouble for a round.
But those moments pass quickly. There are no more title shots or big paydays in Tony Tubbs' future. Just quiet days in Cincinnati, watching a new generation of fighters chase the dreams that slipped through his fingers, and training his grandson Antwaun. "If you see him fight, you see me," Tubbs told The Ring. If so, it’s through a glass darkly: Antwaun has a career record of 5-19, the resume of an opponent rather than a contender.
The final bell rang for Tony Tubbs long ago. Now he's just killing time until the last count, a living reminder that in boxing, as in life, talent alone is never enough. The heavyweight division—which ain’t like it used to be and never was—might move on from one he-isn’t-Ali champ to another, but Tubbs is stuck in a moment he can’t get out of, forever reliving his glory days.
He’s spoken at length about his battles with the best of his era. How he thinks he beat Riddick Bowe in 1991, even though the judges saw it differently. How he outboxed world champ Bruce Seldon and top contender Alexander Zolkin in the prolonged twilight of his career. But for every triumph, there's a setback. The cocaine bust that cost him the NABF title. The first-round knockout losses to Lionel Butler and Jimmy Ellis that showed just how far he'd fallen.
Tubbs will talk a reporter’s ear off about the fighters he faced. How Tyrell Biggs had the fastest feet, how Jimmy Young had the best chin. How Tim Witherspoon was the smartest, how Mike Tyson was the strongest and the hardest puncher. He'll tell you that he himself had the fastest hands of them all, a claim that might've been true once upon a time.
But for all his stories, for all his might-have-beens, Tony Tubbs is yet another cautionary tale in a sport full of them. Another promising pugilist who had made it big and then let it slip away, one missed training session, one late-night party at a time. Tubbs remains frozen in 1985, always a newly-crowned champ with the world at his feet and the troubles still at his back. It's a bittersweet existence, but we’re still telling some stories about him and that’s better than nothing. Perhaps that sort of immortality is the cruelest, the kindest, the truest punch of all.
