Lots of talk of 80’s heavyweights being lost to drugs, Thomas, Tubbs, Witherspoon, Page, Dokes etc but I can’t help but feel that Tyson himself fell into that bracket. He wasn't done by 1990 but he was certainly entering decline at a young age and his autobiography is nothing but sex, drugs, sex, fight, repeat.
Yes, I read a book where he claimed to go straight to heroin within a day or two of the Tyson fight. He had a long (several years at least), clean or semi clean streak before that.
Thomas-Witherspoon is an extremely underrated heavyweight fight. Fun to see two talented, skillful heavyweights going at it. It should be called "The Battle of the Underachievers".
Thomas had apparently been using heroine since a young age. But by the mid 80s it began effecting him noticeably. I heard somewhere that he suffered a stroke not long before the Holyfield fight but took the match anyway. he eventually cleaned up his life and started working with troubled youth. On a side note I believe he was the most talented of the 80s generation and could have been much more than what he was had it not been for his problems.
He was only using heroin as a teen, maybe very early 20s, and after Tyson. His prime was not spent using heroin.
i don’t know the exact dates, durations or quantities by which he was using. But it led to a bad decline
As you answered yourself and confirmed by many here; what happened to that hell of a fighter Pinklon Thomas? He found a hell of a drug!
There's a book out where they interview former Tyson opponents. That's the only thing the book is about. Thomas goes into detail on there
I just read his autobiography. An out of control heavy drug addiction. He was an addict since his early teens. Totally clean now for many many yrs. Accepted Christ. Good man now.
we scored the Thomas - Weaver fight for a Fight of the Week on this board last year. That was one of the best fights we scored and Thomas took punches from Weaver that hurt to watch. And he often took them without seeing them. He was as hard to hurt as anybody I've seen. He wasn't taking the punches by anticipation, he wasn't "riding them out," he was just taking them, and from a big puncher. He also had an excellent jab and useful right.