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Tales of Tony - and the Rock
by Barry Michael
[21 November 2003]

Watching the Melbourne Cup carnival, I spotted my great mate, Tony Barber hosting Richard Pratt's Visyboard tent. Fantastic to see Tony doing well as ever. Takes me back to 1981 when Tony and Helen Barber got involved with my career. This wonderful couple did more to help me than anyone ever did. The Barbers came forward after an article in 'The Bulletin' by Phillip Adams suggested some kind of support to project me towards a world title shot.

The Barbers did everything, including taking me to the USA and setting up a training camp at Red Hill on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula. Brian Schofield and I were the main residents at the camp although we had regular sparring partners visit and sometimes stay.
As Tony tells in his autobiography, 'Who Am I?', Brian and i would get up to all sorts of mischief including sneaking out when everyone was asleep and heading for the nightlife. We may have smuggled a supporter or two back to our camp on the odd occasion. Over all it was a great experience. Helen Barber watched our diet while Tony ran with us and sometimes got in the ring for a round.

Training camps really are the way to prepare for big fights. Our boxers don't often get this chance because our professional game isn't big enough at the moment.

When Tony and Helen took me to the United States in 1981 it was my second time in America and a trip i will never forget. I flew over by myself and met the Barbers in San Francisco, Tony, Helen and their daughters, Kelly and Jackie. We stayed at the Hyatt then hired a Lincoln Continental which we drove to Los Angeles and stayed at the Beverly Hills Hilton.

I had just defended my Commonwealth Lightweight Title with a 10th round KO of Willie Tarika, so I was taking it easy. Tony and I went to the downtown Olympic Gym to watch a Mexican, Gonzalo Montellano who was WBC No 1 at the time. We watched him train and figured his style would suit me if we could get a fight with him.

Anyway we are just about to leave when in walks Rocky Mattioli on the comeback trail in America. It was great to see him as I had sparred him regularly in Australia and had lived in Italy and trained with him when he was world champ.

We watched Rocky KO a Mexican sparring partner. The Rock looked awesome with his shaven head and heavily tattooed arms. He climbed out of the ring cursing the poor performance of the Mexican! So I stepped up and offered my services for the next day. Rocky was grateful. Poor Tony, he was really worried that Rocky was going to hurt me after watching the fate of the poor Mexican. "Baz," he said, "Rocky's too big! You've been partying and not training . ." But in reality I was in great shape.

Next day at the gym Tony was worried, tried to put my mouthguard in upside down, kept telling me to be careful. Anyway we had a really top sparring session which everyone stopped to watch and applauded at the end. To this day my mate Rocky and I still laugh about it. That was the last time I ever boxed with Rocky as he had a couple of fights and retired. A great fighter and a great guy.

Time to sign off, but once again thanks to the Barber family for all they did for me and for a lot of others.