Boxing: The Return of ‘Tommy Z’

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” — Oscar Wilde Tom Zbikowski was a good football player, good enough to be an All-America safety and punt returner at the University Notre Dame and good enough to have been drafted in the third round by Baltimore, where he launched a five-year NFL career with the Ravens and Indianapolis Colts. However, even as he excelled while wearing a helmet and shoulder pads, Zbikowski had a longing in his heart for another sport which he has always considered to be his first and most enduring love: boxing. “It’s tough to hold it in sometimes,” Zbikowski said during an NFL lockout in March 2010, discussing his devotion to the Sweet Science. He had been introduced to boxing as a child before compiling a 75-15 amateur record and winning a Chicago Golden Gloves championship. “A lot of people don’t understand how addictive boxing can be. “The first game I played in Notre Dame Stadium, I had chills,” he added. “When you went out before the game to loosen up, the stands were only half-filled. Then when you came out before the opening kickoff, the band was playing and you couldn’t wait to get going — just an unbelievable feeling — but as incredible as all those football Saturdays were, there’s nothing like the buildup to a fight. There’s no feeling quite like walking out to the ring. There just isn’t. You’re not part of a team; you’re not going for a coin toss to see who’s kicking off and who’s receiving. It’s just you and the other guy. You get some quick instructions from the referee, you touch gloves and the bell rings; and when you’re standing there with no padding, no helmet and in front of 15,000 screaming people in Madison Square Garden, it’s like nothing else.” Zbikowski did just that for his auspicious pro debut as a boxer on June 10, 2006 while still a student-athlete at Notre Dame and in accordance with NCAA Bylaw 12.1.2, which allows athletes to be a pro in one sport while maintaining their amateur status in another so long as they do not receive endorsement money. He appeared on the undercard of a show headlined by WBO junior welterweight champion Miguel Cotto’s 12-round unanimous decision over challenger Paulie Malignaggi, with the legendary Angelo Dundee working his corner and more than 30 of his Fighting Irish teammates in attendance. “Tommy Z,” who made $25,000 for what he described as his “summer job,” stopped 6-foot-2, 227-pound Robert Bell just 49 seconds into the first round, despite spotting his opponent — an Ohio native who was dressed out in Ohio State University colors — three inches in height and 13 pounds. “Tommy Z” had been brought to the attention of big-time promoter Bob Arum by another boxing executive, Carl Moretti, who had learned of Zbikowski’s pugilistic background and, not coincidentally, was a big fan of Notre Dame football. Zbikowski’s success on the gridiron might have gotten him the high-exposure Garden gig and the kind of purse most debuting pros can only dream of; however, neither he nor Arum believed he was just another novelty act to help fill out an undercard, as might have been the case with Top Rank regulars Eric “Butterbean” Esch and Mia “The Knockout” St. John. “There is a cachet to Notre Dame football unlike any other,” said Arum, who acknowledged he might not have been so keen on signing Zbikowski had he played for, say, Weber State or Illinois Wesleyan, “but this kid has real potential as a cruiserweight. He’s got quick reflexes and a great punch.” Time inexorably marches on and, as always, stragglers fall behind. On March 22, Zbikowski — now 30 years of age and 30 pounds lighter than when he made his pro boxing debut with such fanfare a decade earlier — entered the ring for his first bout in five years. No longer the …

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