Special Feature
Tom Gerbasi | Beloved From The Opening Bell
An Ode To The Singular And Irreplaceable Tom Gerbasi
If you have ever enjoyed any part of the UFC, you are the beneficiary of Tom Gerbasi’s work. Whether or not you actually knew him, to know combat sports is to know Tom Gerbasi, and to know Tom Gerbasi is to love Tom Gerbasi.
“TG” passed away this week, which meant the combat sports world lost a foundational member, the UFC family lost its editorial backbone and historian, and we all lost a dearly loved and admired friend. When news broke Wednesday, it was met with outpouring of love, one I expect will continue for the following days, weeks and months. Few people I’ve worked with in the industry simultaneously deserve it and loathe it (but reluctantly appreciate it) more.
A fun part of TG’s reach is the amount of people who unknowingly rely on him is infinite. This is the man who reached out to every single fighter on the roster to gather information that would later end up in their athlete profiles on UFC.com. He wrote copy for the broadcasters. He validated records and obliged when a fighter decided their reach was a half inch longer than it was last time they made the walk. He gave the time of day (and night) to each man or woman he interviewed, each colleague, peer and bright-eyed youngster with whom he spoke.
For all the flowers he could receive, it still wouldn’t equal all he did and all he gave.
Even from his station across the country, TG’s presence wasn’t ever far. Beyond the usual email exchange of filing stories and producing them on the UFC website, he loved to drop-in with something he knew I’d care about. When he learned which cities I was visiting, he’d promptly send a list of restaurants and bookstores to visit. When he saw we had purchased a similar t-shirt displaying Arya Stark posed as Michael Jordan, he sent a goofy selfie to show it off. When he found out I’d watched Almost Famous for the first time in 2020, he sent a link to the oral history that was published earlier in the year. When I sent in a story at a late hour, he’d respond and tell me to go to sleep even though he was burning the midnight oil himself. He remembered I was a big Maggie Rogers fan and would send a link to a video when she made a guest appearance at a concert just to make sure I saw it. I know these experiences aren’t wholly unique, either. My coworkers and other people in the combat sports space surely have a host of their own stories of similar correspondences with him. Many have shared them.
One particularly sticky memory came when I got a call from a number I hadn’t saved. I answered with what must’ve been some confusion or trepidation, he said, “Zac, it’s TG. Let me tell you two stories about George Kimball.” Those who spoke to him know how that sentence sounded in his New York accent. I can’t remember whether I told him I had just read Kimball’s classic boxing book Four Kings or posted it online, but my phone buzzed shortly afterward. Five hilarious minutes later, he finished with, “That’s all. Enjoy your night.” No other topics discussed. Just in and out, and I think the call stuck with me first because it was out-of-the-blue but also because—due to the fact that most of our correspondence came via email—hearing his voice meant it was a special occasion.
The team always made it a point to schedule a dinner with TG during UFC’s annual trip to New York City, and he would oblige, taking various forms of public transportation to take us out to one of his many haunts. He would crack us up with whatever was on his mind (usually work, rec-league soccer, his family, and more work) before making the trek back to Staten Island.
If I’m counting right, I only saw TG in-person twice: once in 2019 and again in 2023. There was a chance to see him in 2021, but I opted to shoot photos of a debuting fighter instead, a choice he playfully never let me live down (fair). But every time anyone on the team got the chance for face-to-face time with him, we always came away with the same loving sentiment: “Oh, you know TG.” I’d always ask what anecdotes he told, and he’d almost always bring up the legendary tale of his one boxing match, chewing up the scenery as he recounted the New York Daily News coverage, particularly the line which read: “Gerbasi was in trouble from the opening bell.” At the dinner in 2023, when he hadn’t brought it up midway through the meal, I egged him on, and he “reluctantly” went into every nook and cranny of the tale.
And that’s who he was: a storyteller’s storyteller. Whether it was about boxing, MMA, roller derby or his own life, Gerbasi could spin a yarn that would have you rolling with laughter or stunned in amazement, and he’d do it all with a roll of his eyes and sly grin that proved he did, in fact, love it all despite the facade he put up otherwise. I used to joke that Gerbasi was the quintessential New York-based sportswriter. You’d hear plenty about the work he didn’t want to do or the annoyances of fighters or managers giving him the run-around, but it was so obvious he loved it all whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Given the state of sports reporting, it’s easy to lionize people you could consider “throwback,” but after decades of underappreciation from the wider MMA public, he deserves all the flowers. He wrote dozens of stories each month, giving as much due to the first fighter on a card as he would a multi-time champion whose legacy was long secured. One of the best parts of my job has been getting to read a handful of his stories each week, partly because I needed to figure out a title for them (despite our best efforts to put that onus on him), but also because I just enjoyed his writing. There was a blend of wit, love, care and earnestness that is increasingly rare in the sport and sportswriting as a whole. Reading a Gerbasi story meant learning and loving the sport or an athlete more, and those who read or received his coverage understood that. In 2022, when Gerbasi was inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, I was tasked with a quick write-up with a warning to the tune of: he’ll hate this, but he’ll appreciate it too, and when the story was published, he delivered an email expressing as much.
In my own career, I have always felt like I lacked a real mentor. I’ve had teachers and peers who have cared and helped, but never really that proverbial guiding hand. TG wasn’t exactly that to me, but he was a writer I admired greatly with whom I worked closely. He would tease me about the fact that he could tell when my heart was and was not fully into a story, but the times he felt moved to praise one of my stories are memories I hold close. He was particularly gracious when I wrote a pair of longform stories: one on Cory Sandhagen before he fought Marlon Moraes and one when I spent a couple days with Molly McCann in Liverpool. Although he was, in essence, my editor, he never once asked me to write less. Instead, he’d encourage me and remind me there was no shortage of space on the Internet.
When I filed those stories, he paid a specifically high compliment that was something to the effect of: “I don’t have to write about them anymore, ZP,” essentially saying there was nothing more he could add, nothing better he could articulate or explain about them. I don’t know how true that was — again, he was a great writer — but to get that feedback from him was the highest of honors.
Even though his workload was truly astonishing, it seemed like he always had his priorities aligned. The website team would often joke that we knew when TG was training for another marathon or hanging out with his grandkids because those were the days (or weeks) he wouldn’t send his stories in until dinnertime on the west coast. To that tune, I was anticipating some late nights as he had expressed his desire to run one more New York City marathon before hanging up the running shoes. My coworkers and I talked about being there for that final race to take photos and force him to begrudgingly accept an excessive amount of fanfare, even planning to wear t-shirts to commemorate the occasion. I’m very sad we won’t get to do that.
He lives on through his wife, daughter and granddaughters, who were always top of his mind. He lives on through what must be hundreds of thousands of words and thousands of stories filed and told. He lives on through all the memories that we share together.
I will miss him dearly. I already do, and I am thankful for the wealth of reminders to return to when that grief asks me to do so.
To have known TG is to have loved TG, and to have loved TG requires remembering him.
What a blessing to have such great stories, such great memories to recall.
