Believe it or not, while Tim is admittedly obsessed with the sport of boxing, this guy actually has a life. He holds down a steady job and is happily married with kids. His wife is usually by his side as he watches the fights. In fact, his three kids have begun to show an interest in their father?s passion; his oldest daughter has been known to watch a big pay-per-view show with Pops and his four-year-old son, named Ali (not sure if he?s named after ?The Greatest? or not) and will regularly ask who the good guy and bad guy is in a match.
But still, they must think he?s a bit crazy, right?
He says laughing, “Well, y? know what, honestly, three, four years ago, I stopped drinking; so I think they?re probably happy. I was the guy running through the wall with a cigarette in one ear and a joint in the other. I?m just better off that I just channel my addiction to my kids and boxing. Those two things, they?re actually pretty happy about it, believe it or not.”
His collecting of fights has actually heightened his interest in the sport.
“I?m in my late 30s, so I grew up with my older brother and dad watching Larry Holmes and Sugar Ray Leonard over the weekends and just growing up through high school and college and stuff, probably like anybody else in their mid-to-late 30s,” he explained. “Mike Tyson got me even more excited about the sport. So I?ve been a boxing fan for my whole life but I think it?s really been over the last couple of years where I?ve really gotten into it a lot more than I have ever before in my lifetime.”
?Trader Tim? makes his living selling surgical implants to eye surgeons. It?s a job that sees him hit the road. So just when does he get to watch Hugo Cazares-Everardo Morales, Luis Lazarte-Carlos Tamara and Souleymane M?Baye-Antonin Decarie?
“I try to watch at least one fight every week night,” he says.”But I?ve got three kids that are ten, four and 18 months. My wife likes to watch HBO shows and stuff like that. So I?m not going to lie; it?s difficult. Some fights, I trade with a guy from Italy that I get regular fights from and I?ll start watching those and three, four rounds, if they start sucking, I just archive it right away. I travel, so I?m in like a hotel one night a week, so I?ll convert some these DVDs down to fit on my I-phone and then I?ll watch like three or four fights when I?m in the hotel on my phone.”
Now, that is a hardcore fight fan.
“I mean, I feel there?s an obligation too. I?m spending my family?s money and buying these DVDs and I?m just not doing it to stack ?em up in a closet. I do enjoy watching them. I want to watch them. I do feel a personal obligation, even for a couple of guys I never heard of out of Sweden. I want to watch what I?ve traded for.”
And with this much attention paid to boxing, Tim, who is a sports fan in general, admits he simply cannot devote much time to anything else.”It is weird that way; my spare time is boxing. I played hockey growing up living in Minnesota and I played in college and stuff. So a lot of my friends still follow hockey; a lot of my friends follow the Vikings really close. And I just had to give that up; I just don?t have enough time with the level of addiction I have to boxing. I can?t really follow any other sport. I can follow them on the periphery but you have to make choices.”
And when it comes to fights, there is no choice- everything must be recorded. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
“Oh, yeah, everything,” he states emphatically. “I have the DirecTV, whatever the top packages is; so I get all those Fox Sports channels, SNY from New York. I?ve got probably another dozen ?series recordings? on those Fox Sports channels. So I record those. There was a ?Broadway Boxing? that just aired for the first time from Lou DiBella, probably a couple of weeks ago, so it showed up on my DVR. I put it to DVD and started watching it. I can?t watch a fight now without recording it.
“In the last three to four years, for sure; I?ve never watched a fight that I haven?t recorded.”
I ask him just how many rounds of boxing he watches a year and I suggest to him that he should start keeping track in 2011. “I?m going to do that,” he says, laughing at the thought. “I have a friend; he lives in Chicago and in 2008 or 2009, he counted the number of fights that he watched through the year and he was keeping this tally on this page online. I should do that. I will do that. That?d be really cool.”
He wants to make this clear; he and his collecting cohorts do this for the love of the game. This is not a commercial endeavor for him or them.
“If it became that, I mean, we?re just a step away from not getting to see any of these fights. It?ll be like getting back to square one,” he says. And while the powers-that-be are justifiably concerned about the issue of piracy, Tim spends more than just a few bucks purchasing all the big fights.”I unfortunately buy every pay-per-view,” he laments. “The piracy, the hard thing about it is that it doesn?t take a rocket scientist to Google ?boxing DVDs? and all this stuff shows up online. But the guys that are really serious about collecting fights and really care about the sport don?t want anything to do with selling fights or being involved with people like that. They realize that the very thing that they love could be in jeopardy.”
So just what were his plans last Friday night, an evening that was replete with boxing across the airwaves?
“It?s funny you ask that because I can?t stand Zab Judah and actually I?ve got so much backlog, I got about two months of foreign stuff I?m behind in. So I?m just going to let ?Friday Night Fights? go to DVR and I?m just going to get caught up on some stuff. Especially some of the British stuff, ?SKY Sports Friday Night?, they?ve got some awesome shows and I?m about two months behind on these shows.
“So I?m watching some of that stuff tonight.”
FRIDAY FLURRIES
I was told that there was at least some dialogue between Gary Shaw and Richard Schaefer regarding a potential bout between Tim Bradley and Amir Khan for 2010. Seeing is believing…Sept. 11th is a busy one for boxing fans (Tim?s kind of day) where HBO has a “Boxing After Dark” telecast (which has landed back at “The Palms” in Las Vegas) in which Yuriorkis Gamboa and Elio Rojas unify their 126-pound straps. Then there is a very good chance that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. might take on the rugged Pawel Wolak in Mexico and it was just announced on Thursday that Wlad Klitschko will defend his heavyweight titles now against Sam Peter on one of the ESPN outlets…If you check the schedule, that is also a huge day for college football, including the Hurricanes going up to Columbus to take on Ohio State at “The Horseshoe”…BTW, I think Chavez Jr.-Wolak is a fun fight…Bob Arum told me on Thursday that Guillermo Rigondeaux has officially inked his deal with Top Rank…I think Dez Bryant could be the steal of the 2010 NFL Draft; good to see he will be in camp nice and early…If you?re the Lakers, do you trade away Andrew Bynum in a package to land Chris Paul?…This week?s edition of “The Main Event” features Shaw and David Mayo…I can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow me at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. You can also become a Facebook fan of Maxboxing at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.
