By Iva Wharton
At 67 years old, boxing coach Al Thomas says he still has a lot to pass on to the boys under his charge. Senior Coach of the Tiger Eye Boxing Gym, Lacava Village, New Amsterdam, Berbice, Thomas can be found teaching his boys the skills they need to become champions.
Born Alsyd Wills, the retired boxer said that his mother registered him as Alsyd Thomas on his school records and it was when he started to box, that he began using the name Al Thomas at the behest of a colleague in the boxing community.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport, the former light heavyweight title holder recounted his story and shared his opinions about the state of boxing in Guyana.
He thinks that the sport is no longer producing boxers like the old days.
“Right now, the amateur boxers are not skillful – it has become the strongest man stand up, the weakest man perish. They have no skillfulness: nobody moves and shows any skill. It’s if I could punch you or hit you harder, that is it. When they are doing the pad work, a man stand up before you one … three, they don’t move, they just stand up the same place. The other person just has to throw back his hand and he will hit them.”
Lennox Beckles, he said, was one of the most skillful amateur boxers Guyana has produced. Beckles, in the opinion of the veteran, knew how to use the ring in order to gain the upper hand over his opponents. It is that critical skill the young fighters have to learn, Thomas suggested, to achieve success like Beckles did.
Initiative
Being proactive and using initiative is vitally important to the boxer, whether he is professional or amateur. Thomas argued that it is not enough to throw punches and to wait to see what the next boxer will do.
His boxing career had highs and lows and was both exciting and sad. He recalled the milestones of that career with Stabroek Sport and according to him, one of the highlights of his career was sparring with boxing legend, Mohammed Ali.
That memorable event happened in 1978 at the Albion Centre Ground where Ali and other members of his delegation were part of a Muslim celebration. Thomas was accustomed to walking with his gear, and so he was ready when it was announced that there was a local fighter who was good enough to face Ali. At the end of that three-round sparring session, Thomas said, Ali told him that he was an excellent fighter and encouraged him to continue his good work.
But one year after the encounter with Ali, he gave up the sport at the professional level and concentrated his energies, instead, on coaching the up-and-coming champions.
Beaten up
Thomas’s career in boxing had an interesting and forceful beginning: at 17 he was beaten up by two school bullies and that day he determined never to lose another fight.
Starting off his career as an amateur fighter, Thomas recalled that his first fight was against then amateur boxing champion, Aubrey December. He won that fight, earning himself a spot among the young contenders. Then followed about two to three other fights before his bout with Lindener, and Guyana’s representative to the Pan American Championship, Orin Cheeseman.
The fight with Cheeseman had a disappointing end. While Thomas maintains that he did everything right and should have been awarded the fight that did not happen. “The decision was given to Cheeseman because the board said that Cheeseman was fighting long and he has more experience to go to the games.”
That made Thomas very angry and was the reason he made the decision to switch from the amateur to the professional ranks.
His first professional fight was against a Surinamese fighter in 1967. “I started fighting, but I was working my body too much and I could not fight after four rounds, because I never had a ten round fight. I got tired in the fourth round and could not come out. But I was beating the man all the time until the fourth round.” Amateur fights, then, he reminisced, lasted just three rounds.
Upon his return to Guyana he began sparring with Lennox Beckles, who was at the time preparing to fight Bonny Grant.
“I went and see Bonny Grant at training one time at Maracaibo Boxing Gym. He moved very stealthily, did not do so much of ducking as we amateurs do. He just take a slight slip and when the punch come – it just graze him, but he don’t take that as a punch, but a graze. Through this I learn that he conserves his energy that would allow him to continue fighting.”
Subsequently, he started training at the YMCA Gym in Albouystown. But then he had no trainer and was forced to become his own trainer, working alongside professional and amateur boxers. It was in this period that he honed his skills, observing the boxers training and picking up small tips from their trainers.
Small riot
Thomas’s next fight at the professional level was against another Surinamese boxer, Ubart. “Ubart had a technique every time I go to use my hand to fight he would stop me and when he stopped me the referee would call for a break. I turn and told my second to take out my mouth guard because I getting frustrated. When we started fighting again I just bite he in he chest after he hold me.”
Laughing, Thomas said he knocked out Ubart twice in the ninth round, but that did not sit well with Ubart’s relatives, who dealt him two slaps. Thereafter, a small riot broke out.
“So the whole fight came off and there was no decision. The police had to come and carry me home, before anybody do me anything,” he recalled.
One week after his return from Suriname he fought Godfrey Alexander. However, lacking rest and proper preparation he lost that fight in the second round.
While boxing brought him joy and some success, he was not able to earn enough to maintain his family.
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF), he said, offered him the stability of a steady income, but he had to retire from professional boxing, as he was not allowed to have a second job while in the GDF.
Not being able to box in the GDF, Thomas said, he picked up rugby. The first year on the rugby team, he was named to the national squad. He played the sport for three years, leaving after his three-year contract with the army was up in 1973.
One week after leaving the GDF, Thomas landed a fight against Charles Amos. However, despite sending Amos crashing to the canvas three times, the decision was a draw.
Dissatisfied with the decision, Thomas demanded a rematch, which did not end in his favour as Amos defeated him. That day Thomas lost his trainer, Humber Green.
Green would no long train him as he had let him down. In spite of the loss to Amos, Thomas was determined to prove to Green that he was still a good fighter.
“I turned to Humber Green and told him that you don’t want to train me anymore, so I will return to Berbice, but [when] I return to Georgetown not a man will be able to stand up before me.”
Thomas said he returned to Berbice and continued training for his next fight against fellow Berbician Tyron Taylor. Taylor hit the canvas in the second round.
According to him, not having a trainer was nothing new nor was it difficult. He said that a book How To Box Like Joe Lewis was his trainer.
“Whatever I saw in the book is what I used to go and perform. I used to try and pick up speed and good stamina.”
Thomas proved himself in the third fight against Amos, “When I got to fight to the six round bout I stop he, there was nothing that could have stopped me. That was my best time, it was the first time I found myself in such great condition, because of the mind I had, I said I had to beat him.”
It was all over in the fourth round, and according to Thomas, it might have been Amos’ last fight.
In search of steady employment, once more, Thomas was forced to leave the city, this time for Tumatumari,
World title
Two weeks into his new job he was offered a shot at the light heavyweight title against English fighter Harry Mentis. Thomas won that fight in the eighth round, taking with him the world title.
He went on to fight two other fights against Trinidadians Neptune and Kenny Clarke before taking a two-year leave of absence from the sport.
Upon his return he faced Robert ‘Pone Head’ Nixon, at that time, a prisoner. “From the time I go in the right I could not hear my ears is just Pone Head, Pone Head. But I knew that I was going to catch him because when I threw the right hand and I see he barely move off my right hand.”
Blood was shed, but Thomas was determined not to end the fight as he was being urged to.
“By the time the doctor left and go to his seat and sit down, Pone Head was on the ground. Soon he get knock down on the ground the whole Sports Hall was like the day when the earth stood still. Because from the time Pone Head enter the ring you heard Pone Head, Pone Head. Every time the round knock you hear Pone Head, Pone Head, everybody knocking a boots, who aint got boots knocking with bottle, tinning cup shouting Pone Head .. so I could not have think or anything. But soon as Pone head get knock all you hear is Pone and then silence.”
The sweet victory over Pone Head made up for the two years without a fight. Pone Head also became the sparring partner Thomas said he never had.
However, Nixon was not satisfied with the beating he received, and requested a return fight. “From the beginning of the round I start sparring with him and then he asked ‘Wah happen Al Thomas, what you doing?’ I go out and two right cross and another two right cross and he started staggering. I knock him out in the fourth round.”
That loss marked the end of Richard ‘Pone Head’ Nixon, but it took Thomas four years to get another fight. In 1979 he fought Lindener, Conrad Wilson. Wilson won that fight after the referee stopped it in the second round. That was Thomas’s last professional fight.
According to Thomas, he was offered a return fight, but he missed the opportunity and never got another. He confided that his return fights were always better than the first time.
Thomas said he was happy with his boxing career, though he could have done more. However he is now content with preventing the younger boxers from suffering the same fate as he did.
“What I aint get I would like the youths to get because during the time I boxing, I never had anyone to train me, I went through perils. But I want to coach the boys and show them what I had to battle to learn.”
Thomas, now a pensioner, also works two jobs to support himself: he is a security officer and a snow cone vendor.
The income from the two jobs, together with his pension is what he uses for his own upkeep as well as his boxing gym, as he needs to purchase equipment.
A disappointed Thomas said he had no pictures of his fights to share. His pictures fell into a river and drifted away before he could retrieve them. He said he used to walk with his bag of photographs as irrefutable evidence of who he once was.
