If there was any mystery regarding Tom Gerbasi it had to do with how he could spend so much time in the fight world and yet remain so upbeat and full of joy. Rather than dissuade new writers, or steer them towards healthier pursuits, his instinct was to welcome them, encourage them and nurture them. He frequented a world of sharks and scumbags but somehow retained a purity and youthful enthusiasm I both admired and to an extent envied – never more so than of late. Even his writing felt like a hug. It was genial, heartfelt, tight. Tom, for example, would have never thought to use an uplifting film about the deaf community as an analogy in a column about a heavyweight boxing match on pay-per-view. He would have instead just shrugged his shoulders, then laughed at the ridiculousness of whatever it was I was fretting about. He would have said, “Just do the work. Don’t take things so seriously.” His reference would have been a different film: Chinatown, perhaps. “Forget it, Elliot, it’s boxing,” he might have said.
