Attack Of The Killer Tomato Cans

Much like the proverbial rose, a toughman contest by any other name is still a toughman contest. Last Friday night in a tent beside the Casino Magic gambling complex in Bay St. Louis , Miss., in a single-elimination, 15-bout slugfest billed as The People's Choice World Heavyweight Superfights, a mixed bag that included two former world champions, three ex-convicts, an ex-cop from Romania , at least one recovering drug addict and an 18-year-old Canadian who didn't know he was fighting until 35 minutes before he put on the gloves, rewrote the script of Requiem for a Heavyweight.

Before the fat lady sang, 3,799 pounds of the good, the bad and the ugly battled for more than four hours in three-round shifts—or less. They were fighting for a top prize of $1 million, although the actual sum turned out to be $830,000 less than that because, promoters said, the original financial backers had pulled out.

Still, it wasn't bad money for Tony Tubbs , the 35-year-old former WBA champion who won the requisite four fights, defeating Daniel Dancuta, the aforementioned Romanian cop, in a slow-motion final. In his last legitimate outing before this tournament, Tubbs had been knocked out in one round last August in Boise , Idaho , by Jimmy Ellis , a mediocre club fighter.

To a purist, the tournament was not boxing, but where else could you see 40-year-old Bonecrusher Smith , an ex-WBA champ and erstwhile prison guard, battle Lester Jackson, a 278-pound former inmate at Sing Sing? After that bout, Smith defeated Marshall Tillman, an alumnus of Angola (La.) State Prison, who had just beaten Jason Williams , who was two months out of a California prison.

Smith's downfall came against the 22-year-old Dancuta, who confided that he hoped to remain in the U.S. "I've waited a long time for my freedom," he said.

"A lot of guys in this tournament can say the same thing," someone suggested.

A swarming fighter with an 8-1 pro record, Dancuta had first mugged Derrick Roddy, a 17-0 boxer out of Kansas City , who was selected via a 900 number. Tournament promoters gave fans a choice of seven boxers, with the winner rounding out the 16-man field. From that slate of nonentities, Roddy emerged as the People's Choice. Unimpressed, Dancuta stopped the PC in the first round.

After that, Dancuta got a walkover when Craig Petersen, an Australian, was medically disqualified following his first-round victory over veteran Smokin' Bert Cooper. "I can't remember anything after the first round," Petersen told his mother, Alana, back in the dressing room.

"Where are you?" asked Mom.

" Australia ," Petersen replied.