A warm evening breeze drifts over the Englishman Tim Thomas as he sips his drink and stares at the bright lights of the Monte Carlo nightlife across the bay. Standing on the deck of a luxury yacht, he is contemplating an afternoon which has seen him both draw Robin Van Roosmalen for the opening match of the GLORYÂ 3 ROME -Â FINAL 8 and make an enemy of Albert Kraus.
Not a bad day’s work.
Thomas’ route into Kraus’ bad books started with some comments made earlier this year, shortly after he had won a late-notice fight in April’s FINAL 16 stage to book a place at the FINAL 8, which takes place in Rome, Italy on November 3. Thomas was asked who he would like to face in the FINAL 8 and he immediately said Kraus.
When asked why, he said “I’ve not been impressed with him if I am honest. I have been to watch him fight live twice and I didn’t think he looked that good. I know obviously he has got a big name and he has beaten some big opponents but I would like to get in there with him and see how I measure up against him.”
The comments were relayed to Kraus months later, when he and Thomas were stood side by side with the other six members of the FINAL 8. They had just received their opening-round matches via a random draw undertaken by the Muay Thai legend Ramon Dekkers when Kraus was asked for his thoughts on Thomas’ comments and the possibility of them meeting in the semi-final. The veteran Kraus said, “It doesn’t matter - he isn’t going to get past Robin anyway.”
Kraus’ dry response, delivered deadpan with Thomas stood right next to him, drew gales of laughter from the draw attendees. Hours later, Thomas also laughed about it as the yacht which hosted the draw became the venue for a late-night party for various invited guests and dignitaries.
“I said Kraus was a bit past his best and he didn’t like that. But I don’t care, I don’t tell lies, I tell things how I see them and if he doesn’t like it then he doesn’t like it. We might meet each other in the semi-finals, if I win my first fight and if he wins his. And if we do meet then I will prove to him that he is past it and that there is a new kid on the block,” said the English knockout artist through a huge smile.
“I think I will go straight through him to be honest. If I do get matched with him, in my head that’s already a win. I already clearly visualise myself beating Kraus and I’m very strong willed. He doesn’t worry me at all. He’s a sharper dresser, I will give him that. He looks like Scarface there with his expensive suit and his big shades on. I think he has been hitting the sunbed a bit too hard though - he looks darker than me!”
No doubt about it, Tim Thomas is a character and has star potential. He possesses the quick wit and trademark swagger of the young British male and his Afro-Caribbean good looks mean that if he had taken up singing instead of fighting, he would be a poster on many a young girl’s wall by now. But don’t let the exterior fool you. Inside the ring, Thomas is all business and he takes his work seriously.
For example, he has done his homework on each of the FINAL 8 fighters and has devised a gameplan for each one of them - including the dreaded Petrosyan, who meets American entrant Ky Hollenbeck in the first round. Thomas says he would have been happy enough to draw Petrosyan first but he doesn’t deny that its not the ideal first-round match-up.
“It was a bit of bad luck for him getting the favourite for the first fight but if I was in his shoes I would just be thinking that its a good opportunity. A good fight will turn heads whether he wins or not and as he isn’t as well known as Petrosyan, a good fight with him will raise some eyebrows,” he reasons.
“Good luck to him, anything can happen in these tournaments. Petrosyan might get knocked out in the first 30 seconds - fingers crossed!”
However, the odds of Petrosyan being knocked out in the first thirty seconds - or at all - are long in the extreme and so Thomas has spent some time calculating what his approach would have been had he drawn him for the fight. Instead he has drawn the young Dutch turbine Robin Van Roosmalen.
“If I had got Petrosyan then I would be working a lot on being very tight in my guard and very tidy with my techniques. I would also be working on being very strong with every hit because when you land something on Petrosyan you want it to take effect one hundred per cent,” he explains.
“He’s very good and I think my tactics would depend on how he approached me. If he was playing the usual technical game I would probably look to turn it into a brawl but if he was coming at me aggressively then I think I would move off and play the technical game. It would depend what he was giving me really.
“With Van Roosmalen, he is a bit more wild and so he has a different game. With him being shorter and liking to use his hands and throw a lot of hooks, I can keep him at long range, use my kicks, not get caught up in his game and instead make him play mine.”
Thomas sounds fairly pleased that he has drawn Van Roosmalen first. It isn’t Kraus, true, but neither is it a nightmare like Petrosyan or a dangerous unknown like Davit Kiria or Shemsi Beqiri, the latter a former training partner of Petrosyan and still a close friend.
“Drawing Van Roosmalen first is pretty good for me, I’m quite happy with that. He is a lot shorter than me and I’ve always done well against shorter fighters in the past. Plus the only thing he has ever seen of me is when I fought Denis Schnedimiller at the Final 16 in Sweden earlier this year,” Thomas nods.
“I took that fight on a week’s notice and so I had very little time to prepare, because I lost a day or two travelling to Sweden as well. So if Robin is preparing for that version of Tim Thomas, he is going to get a surprise”