Tommy Morrison

Tommy Morrison, who has died aged 44, beat George Foreman to become the WBO heavyweight champion in 1993 and was cast as Tommy “The Machine” Gunn, Rocky Balboa’s protégé in Rocky V (1990); but his career began to spiral downwards when his licence to fight was suspended in 1996 after he tested positive for HIV.

When Sylvester Stallone cast him in Rocky V, Morrison had already racked up 19 victories, with 15 knockouts. He was not a great boxer, but “The Duke”, as he was known (he claimed to be a grand-nephew of John Wayne), had a good left hook. Also, in a part of the sport dominated by black fighters, he was white.

Though cocky, blond, and built like a tank, Morrison was overhyped. When, on June 7 1993, he scored his victory on points over Foreman to capture the WBO title, his opponent was 44 years old, flabby and pursuing one of more than a dozen comebacks.

Morrison held the title for only four months, losing it to the then little-known Michael Bentt after being knocked down three times in the first round. He beat a string of faded stars over the next couple of years before squaring up to Lennox Lewis, who stopped him in six rounds, leaving him badly cut above his right eye. Despite that defeat, the promoter Don King promised Morrison millions of dollars to fight Mike Tyson in 1996, knowing that audiences would pay to see the “Great White Hope” take on the “World’s Baddest Man”.

But in February 1996, days before a scheduled “warm-up” bout in Las Vegas against Arthur “Stormy” Weathers, Morrison was diagnosed HIV positive and forced to retire from the ring aged just 27.

There followed 11 years in the wilderness, during which Morrison spent 14 months in prison on drug and weapons charges. He was arrested several times for drug possession.

Morrison initially blamed the HIV test result on a hyperactive sex life, confessing that he had slept with as many as “three women a day for seven or eight years”. Later on, however, he claimed, variously, that the original HIV test had been a false positive; that he was the victim of a conspiracy by the government or a rival promoter; that HIV was an invention by a scientist who wanted to make money; and that there was no evidence of a link between HIV and Aids.

As proof of his belief, Morrison refused to take his medication and when, towards the end of his life, his health took a sharp turn for the worse and his skin developed weals that appeared to one journalist to be the HIV symptom of Kaposi’s sarcoma, he dismissed them as mosquito bites. As late as 2011 he was insisting that he would be world heavyweight champion again.

His family has refused to say whether or not he died of the disease.

Tommy David Morrison was born in Gravette, Arkansas, on January 2 1969 . His mother, Diana, was acquitted of a murder charge when he was young; a brother would spend 15 years in jail for rape; and his father, Tim, a philanderer and drunkard, beat his son . The Morrison family moved between small towns in Arkansas and Oklahoma, often living in a trailer, three children in one bedroom. His parents were frequently apart.

Tommy’s first fight is said to have been arranged by his mother when he was five during a family outing to a drive-in movie theatre. When an older boy began throwing pebbles into his Coca Cola, at his mother’s urging he attacked the boy with his fists, leaving him with a bloody nose and cut above the eye: “It was like a bell went off and I realised: 'Damn, I’m good at this’,” Morrison recalled. “And I loved the feeling it gave me. Loved it. Just declaring dominance, just BOOM!”

He fought his first boxing match aged eight and, at the age of 13, began fighting in so-called “tough man’’ contests. Using a false birth certificate to compete in matches for 21 year-olds, he fought “bouncers and guys from motorcycle gangs’’ for a few hundred dollars a time.

Morrison soon moved to Kansas City to train, winning a Golden Gloves competition, though he lost out to Ray Mercer in trials for the 1988 Olympics. The same year he turned professional, and won his first 28 fights before losing again to Mercer.

After he had been diagnosed with HIV, the only places Morrison could get a fight were in West Virginia and on an Indian reservation in Arizona, both in 2007, and in Mexico in 2008. He won each time on a knockout and finished his career with a record of 49 wins from 52 fights.

Tommy Morrison is survived by his British-born wife, Trisha, whom he married in 2011. He is thought to have had several children by other relationships.

Tommy Morrison, born January 2 1969, died September 1 2013