Pete Iorizzo: Boxer Ricky Thomas battled till the end - Albany Times Union
As mourners filed into the Christ Church of Albany to pay final respects to Ricky Thomas , a man seated in the fifth row stared at the cracked screen of his Samsung cellphone, watching a boxing video on YouTube. " Allan Oliver said, pausing and rewinding the video on his phone to watch again. His eyes followed the fighter in brown shorts with a chiseled chest, short-cropped hair and big broad, shoulders, the fighter who won three Empire State Games gold medals, rubbed elbows with Mike Tyson and went 10 rounds with a world champion. "There's that jab," Oliver said, the video playing silently in his hand. There he is, Ricky the Time Bomb. Ricky 'Time Bomb' Thomas. I don't even know how he got it. Just one day they were calling him that. In good times, Thomas was a big gregarious man who would jog around Albany, twirling and shadow boxing as he bounced to the hip-hop playing through his ear buds. When he ran into a friend, he'd throw a few playful jabs and talk some trash. That was Rick Tick , as his friends and family called him. But months would go by without friends hearing from Rick, and they'd know then he was fighting his toughest opponent of all: his own demons. He struggled with mental illness as long as friends can remember. Source: www.timesunion.com
