From the age of 13 to 19 Tommy entered every tough man contest he could. Winning 49 fights out of the 50 he participated in. During this time starting in December of 1976 he also was fighting amateur boxing matches. In 1980 he also won the Jr. Olympics. He continued this until 1988 where his total of amateur fights was 242 with an impressive amount of wins which was 222 with only 20 losses.